Save Meriam: save our sense of humanity

The report added that more than 2.2 billion people – 32% of the world's population – live in countries where government restrictions or social hostility on the basis of religion rose substantially over the three-year period.

Only one percent of the world's population live in countries where government restrictions or social hostilities declined.

Meriam has enjoyed nothing like the benefits of due legal process and the blatant inhumanity of her degradation is provoking outcries from human rights campaigners and political and religious leaders.

From the moment her story first hit social media networks a week ago, it was met with strong reactions from people of many faiths and none.

Along with repulsion at the way Meriam is being treated, comes the awful realisation that there will surely be hundreds or thousands of similar cases about which we will hear nothing.

Even in the age of ubiquitous social media, the era of citizen reporters whose witness to crimes can sometimes bear instant and widespread fruit, we simply can't see everything.

While Sudan locks itself in the middle ages, Pakistan also faces condemnation for the death of a pregnant woman who was publicly stoned by her relatives and onlookers.

Farzana Parveen had committed the apparently unpardonable sin of marrying a man of whom her father did not approve.

The details of the story are still murky but it appears that the husband may also have been involved in a murder - that of his first wife. Allegations also appeared today linking Farzana's family with the earlier murder of her sister.

Apparently, this kind of thing is not uncommon in parts of the country, where certain social classes consider themselves to be above the secular law.

Some would argue that the story is less about religion than that of Meriam Ibrahim. However, there's little doubt that the father and his community will use their religion to justify their crimes.

One thing is certain. Like the story of Meriam, it demonstrates that women are often the first to suffer when inhumanity is overlooked - or worse, condoned - by law.