http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=825798Several positive developments progressed this week in the case of an Ohio teenager who converted to Christianity from Islam and has been fighting the efforts of her Islamic parents to have her returned to their custody.
Seventeen-year-old Rifqa Bary ran away from her parents' Columbus-area home in July as she feared being killed for converting to Christianity. She traveled to Orlando, but after a series of legal wranglings, a judge ordered her to return to Ohio where she has been living in a foster home since October 27.
TomTrento (FL Security Council)According to the Columbus Dispatch, a Franklin County magistrate ruled Tuesday that the Christian girl does not have to participate in mediation with her parents. Tom Trento, director of the Florida Security Council, one of the organizations that has been fighting on Bary's behalf, explains the two sides of the case.
"The Rifqa legal team is saying that the parents are a threat to her and that she should not be returned; she should stay as a foster child in the care of Ohio until she's 18 and make up her own mind," he says. "And the other side, the family side, is saying, 'No, we want her back.'"
So Trento believes the only way to solve this custody fight might be through the courts.
"If it goes to trial -- which none of us think it will; we think there'll be a last-minute deal where she remains a ward of the state -- because if it goes to trial, then you're going to see experts on honor killings on Sharia law [and] on apostasy," he predicts.
The Florida Security Council director thought the Ohio magistrate might set a trial date on Tuesday, but he only scheduled a January 19 date for the next hearing on the case, moving young Bary closer to her 18th birthday.
Topic: Rifqa's case takes positive turn (Read 1977 times)