{"id":44598,"date":"2026-05-13T14:07:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T12:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/?p=44598"},"modified":"2026-05-13T14:13:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T12:13:34","slug":"court-in-warrap-jail-a-woman-for-6-months-for-refusing-to-abandon-seventh-day-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/13\/court-in-warrap-jail-a-woman-for-6-months-for-refusing-to-abandon-seventh-day-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Court in Warrap jail a woman for 6 months for refusing to abandon Seventh-day Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><b><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">By Hou Akot Hou<\/span><\/b><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">A resident of Turalei Payam in Twic County, Warrap State, has been sentenced to six months in prison over a domestic dispute linked to religious differences within her family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">According to local authorities who spoke to the media, the 25-year-old woman allegedly resisted repeated demands from her husband to stop attending the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the area. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">The disagreement reportedly escalated and was later taken to the county court.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">After hearing arguments from both parties, the court sentenced the woman to six months\u2019 imprisonment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">Speaking to the media, Twic County Paramount Chiefs Court representative Mayom Riing said the woman had ignored her husband\u2019s requests to abandon the church and was accused of giving away household property and assets to church members as offerings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">Riing stated that the court, presided over by county paramount chiefs, decided to imprison the woman in an attempt to \u201cchange her heart\u201d and encourage her to comply with cultural expectations regarding obedience to her husband.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">\u201cThe local county paramount chiefs&#8217; court has decided to sentence this woman to six months in prison to allow her to reconsider her position over the beliefs of the SDA doctrines,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">He added that community leaders and family members from both sides had attempted to mediate the dispute without success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">\u201cThe chiefs tried all means to call both parents of the woman and the man, but the woman resisted them, so they decided to pass the verdict of six months in jail,\u201d he noted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">Riing further alleged that the woman had been selling household property and donating the proceeds to the church, which reportedly angered her husband and prompted him to seek legal action.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">Residents in Twic County have reportedly had long-standing tensions with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">In previous incidents, some church members were allegedly beaten for praying at a site the community had not officially allocated to them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span lang=\"en-SS\" style=\"font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: #0C00;\">The situation resembles earlier tensions in Gogrial East County, where former Member of Parliament Salva Mathok was accused of ordering the burning of an SDA church amid disputes over church doctrines that some local communities considered incompatible with traditional beliefs.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Hou Akot Hou A resident of Turalei Payam in Twic County, Warrap State, has been sentenced to six months in prison over a domestic dispute linked to religious differences within her family. According to local authorities who spoke to the media, the 25-year-old woman allegedly resisted repeated demands from<a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/13\/court-in-warrap-jail-a-woman-for-6-months-for-refusing-to-abandon-seventh-day-church\/\">[Read More&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":44599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news","category-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SDA-Church.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44598"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44602,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44598\/revisions\/44602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}