c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Washington’s first snow storm of the season came Thursday (Jan. 9), forcing school closings and numerous traffic delays. But outside the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mona Ghalib and her protest were undeterred.

Ghalib, a 25-year-old Muslim student, didn’t want the snow to delay her mission _ a mission that had brought her from Florence, S.C., on Wednesday _ so she had parked around the corner from the embassy and slept in her car all night.

At 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning, as snow began to accumulate in downtown Washington, Ghalib began her one-woman, two-day vigil calling on the UAE to release her Christian husband, who has been imprisoned in the Gulf state since November 1995 because of the couple’s interfaith marriage.”My husband is in very bad shape. They have beaten and starved him, and now he is sick, all because he married me, a Muslim,”said Ghalib in an interview at her vigil site.

Standing covered with snow on a construction median in the middle of the street in front of the embassy, Ghalib held a stark black and white sign with the printed message:”My husband is in prison because he is a Christian married to a Muslim. He has been beaten, tortured since the date of his arrest November 1995 by the United Arab Emirates.” Ghalib’s husband, Elie Dib Ghalib, was arrested in the UAE five months after their June 1995 marriage. On Oct. 29, 1996, an Islamic court found Ghalib, 30, guilty of adultery because any marriage between a Muslim and a non-Muslim is illegal in the UAE. The court sentenced Ghalib to an additional year in prison and to a flogging of 39 lashes.

Elie Dib Ghalib has not been allowed contact with Mona, but she said visitors to other prisoners in the Abu Dhabi facility keep her informed about his condition.

According to Mona Ghalib, the flogging sentence has not yet been carried out. However, she claims that her husband was already flogged repeatedly during the investigation of his case.

Ghalib said that since she began speaking out about Elie’s plight after the October ruling, prison authorities have punished her husband by placing him in solitary confinement and withholding meals from him. She said concern about his physical and emotional health prompted her vigil.”I’m not going to wait until he dies. I have to do something. This was all I knew to do,”she said.

Mona and Elie Dib Ghalib, who is a native of Lebanon, met in the UAE, where he was working as a restaurant manager in Abu Dhabi. They were married in Lebanon in June 1995. A few weeks later Mona came to the United States, where she is a business major at Francis Marion University in Florence. Elie Dib Ghalib returned to his job at the Intercontinental Hotel in Abu Dhabi.

Mona Ghalib said after authorities learned about the marriage, they arrested her husband and subjected him to repeated interrogations and beatings. Mona said the couple had no idea of the possible consequences their marriage would bring.

Officials at the UAE Embassy said they had no comment about the case or Mona Ghalib’s vigil. Early Thursday morning, security officials outside the embassy forced Ghalib to move from her spot in front of the building to public property across the street.

Mona Ghalib said she intends to keep up pressure on UAE officials until they release her husband. “I’m not going to shut up. If this is going to take my whole life, I’m going for it,”she said.

The international human rights group Amnesty International has called upon the Crown Prince and the UAE minister of the interior”to effect the immediate and unconditional release of Ghalib, if indeed his marriage is the sole reason for his imprisonment.” In a statement, Amnesty also expressed opposition to the use of flogging as a violation of basic human rights.

The U.S. State Department’s annual human rights report said that while the Provisional Constitution prohibits torture or degrading treatment in the UAE,”Shari’a (Islamic) courts frequently impose flogging on Muslims found guilty of adultery, prostitution and drug and alcohol abuse.”The report noted that”in a few cases”the sentences are also carried out against non-Muslims.

MJP END LAWTON