In eastern Uganda, a Muslim man burned his 19-year-old daughter with a flat iron on July 21 after discovering her conversion to Christianity, according to sources.
Naasike Maliyati of Nampologoma, Butaleja District, reported attending an evangelistic crusade with a friend on July 15 while visiting her grandmother in Lwangoli, Busoba Sub-County, Mbale District.
“When they called people to give their lives to Christ, I also went and prayed to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior,” Maliyati said. “When I went back home, I told my sister that I had left Islam. She went and told our dad about my conversion to Christianity.”
After attending church the following Sunday, Maliyati, a student at the Noor Islamic Institute in Mbale, returned home to find her father, 44-year-old Abdulrahim Kutosi, and her uncles furious with her, she claimed.
“My father took a hot flat iron and hot water, burned me, and yelled that I was a shame to the family,” Maliyati said to Morning Star News after she had been tied up and beaten. “I was burned for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity, as my father furiously continued shouting that I had shamed the family. He continued saying that even Allah was annoyed with me as the pain continued inside my body.”
She heard him order her to stop attending church services before relatives put her on a motorbike and left her near the Namatala River, she said. A Christian on a motorcycle who happened by Nicolas Ndobooli rescued her.
“I saw someone yelling for help and calling, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!’” Ndobooli told Morning Star News. “Being a Christian, I decided to stop, took the risk, and put her on my motorbike to the clinic.”
He paid 30,000 Uganda shillings (8 USD) to admit her to medical treatment, he said.
Area Christians have condemned Kutosi’s cruel treatment of his daughter, sources said.
The attack was the latest of many instances of persecution of Christians in Uganda that Morning Star News has documented.
Uganda’s constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate one’s faith and convert from one faith to another. Muslims make up no more than 12 percent of Uganda’s population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country.