According to the press reports the sentence was for the offence of failing to inform the police of her husband's activities (I have been having trouble trying to track down the precise details, including the relevant Act etc – more evidence of the remoteness now of the legal system)
This sentence came during a week when there was much media discussion – including on Radios 4 & 5 – of the question of whether it is ever right for a mother to give up her son to the police when she knows he has committed a crime. It would be interesting to hear of any case where a mother has been prosecuted for failing to do so, of telling lies to the police, or of helping him to get away
The atmosphere in which the trial & sentencing of Yeshi Girma took place can be gauged by the judge's expressed disappointment that he was unable to impose a longer sentence, & his implication that she shares some of the responsibility for the de Menezes shooting
This week we mourn the death of the first British woman soldier to die in Afghanistan, a country in which one of our stated aims is the improvement of the position of women
I do not argue that Yeshi Girma should not have been tried or punished because she is a wife & mother. Still less that we are somehow sending the wrong message because she is a Moslem. I would have no problem with the idea of her being tried on a charge of involvement in the crime, maybe even of conspiracy. But the confluence of the times, the fact that she is a wife, & a Moslem, seem to have brought about a special charge, & perhaps a peculiarly harsh sentence, just for her
On a more hopeful front, Samina Malik’s conviction for possessing items, including poetry, of use to terrorists has been overturned on appeal
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