Fwd: [sudans-john-ashworth] Religious Discrimination against Christians in Sudan

[Elisabeth Janaina]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: John Ashworth <ashwor...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2017 at 7:16 PM
Subject: [sudans-john-ashworth] Religious Discrimination against Christians in Sudan
To: Group <sudans-joh...@googlegroups.com>

Expansion of the Religious Discrimination against Christians in Sudan

Sudan Democracy First Group 8th of April 2017

On 3rd April 2017, the courtyard of the Evangelical Church and School
in Omdurman, witnessed the killing of Sheikh Yunnan Abdullah, a
religious leader of the church, an incident which displays the growing
religious discrimination against; and oppression of Sudanese
Christians. The incidence occurred in regard to a conflict over land,
in which the Evangelical Church is struggling to defend the lands and
properties of the church, against land grabbing by a group supported
by the Ministry of Guidance, which is aiming to sell and allocate the
land for investment.

The Evangelical Church issued a statement revealing the details of the
incident on April 6, 2017. The statement outlines the details of the
attempt by the group supported by Ministry of Guidance, with backing
from the police, to forcefully seize the land of the church and
handing it over to an investor. This occurred in disregard by the
Ministry, to a previous judicial ruling to protect the land and
property of the church.

A similar incident occurred in July 2016, when security forces stormed
the Evangelical School in Khartoum-North with five heavily armed
vehicles and arrested 19 priests, sheikhs and students, all members of
the Evangelical community. The arrested at that time were holding a
peaceful sit-in, inside the church to protest the selling of the
church land to an investor.

Additionally, displaying the growing discrimination and oppression of
the church in Sudan, is an incident which occurred in January 2017,
when Sudanese authorities sentenced Sudanese priest Hassan Abdel Rahim
and activist Abdel Moneim Toulman to 15 years in prison respectively,
for collaborating with a Czech priest, Peter Gassik, in the treatment
of a young Darfuri man who was burned by security authorities. Gassik
initially was sentenced to a life-long prison sentence, but was
however released later. To date Toulman and Abdul Rahim remain in
detention.
Since 2011, repeated attempts to confiscate the properties of the
Sudanese churches and their endowments, and increasing implementation
of various types of restrictions on activities of Sudanese Christians
with their various sects, have been made. This clearly demonstrates
growing and continuous trends of systematic discrimination against
Christians in Sudan. An additional layer of discrimination becomes
visible, when taking into account that large proportions of Sudanese
Christians are originating from the conflict zones in the Nuba
Mountains. Security forces have thereby additionally labelled their
religious communities as a security threat.

SDFG calls on the national democratic forces to stand up against the
multi-layered harassment and discrimination against Sudanese
Christians and calls for strong solidarity, necessary to uphold values
of justice and in order to contribute to holding together the social
fabric, which the ruling authorities continuously aim to tear apart
through practices of ethnic and religious discrimination. Moreover,
the inclusion of Sudanese Christians is a not only a necessary but
inevitable centrepiece of bringing comprehensive and longstanding
solutions to the political crisis in Sudan.

Sudan Democracy First Group issued a detailed report in March 2016
about the incidents of religious discrimination and harassment against
Sudanese citizens of the Christian faith over the past years, which
can be found below.

________________________________
Sudan Democracy First Group
Sudan Religious Discrimination and the Quest for National Integration
 14  March 2016

In the early morning of Friday 18th December 2015, forces from the
National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) arrested the two
pastors Hassan Abdul Rahim Kodi and Telal Ngosi at their homes and
took them to an unknown destination. The two pastors are senior
clerics in the Church of Jesus Christ of Sudan. Pastor Hassan is the
Secretary General of the church. Since then they have been held in
incommunicado detention: their families have been prevented from
visiting them and access to lawyers and legal aid denied. To date, no
charges have been brought against them.

Since the 1989 National Islamic Front (NIF) coup, Sudan has witnessed
a significant clampdown on religious freedoms. The Comprehensive Peace
Agreement (CPA) period however did protect a certain margin of freedom
with Article 38 of the Interim Constitution of 2005 providing that,
"Every person shall have the right to the freedom of religious creed
and worship, and to declare his/her religion or creed and manifest the
same, by way of worship, education, practice or performance of rites
or ceremonies, subject to requirements of law and public order; no
person shall be coerced to adopt such faith, that he/she does not
believe in, nor to practice rites or services to which he/she does not
voluntarily consent".

Although the Interim Constitution is still in force, with the
independence of South Sudan in July 2011 there has been a steady
erosion of the space created by the CPA. Even before independence,
statements by President Omar Al-Bashir made it clear that there was
little intention to maintain the freedoms revitalised by the CPA. He
declared, “If South Sudan secedes, we will change the constitution and
at that time there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture
and ethnicity... Sharia (Islamic law) and Islam will be the main
source for legislation, Islam the official religion and Arabic the
official language ". Al-Bashir’s statement was a clear indication that
a crackdown against religious freedom was in preparation for the
post-secession period, and, in particular, against Christians. This
revealed itself immediately after the outbreak of war in the Two Areas
(Nuba Mountains/South Kordofan and Blue Nile) in mid-2011 when
Khartoum witnessed an increasing number of attacks on churches. It
seemed the authorities perceived Churches as spaces where unwanted
groups of people from the Two Areas—where Christianity is
practised—could congregate.

Attacks on religious leaders and places of worship

In June 2011, an extremist group burned a building belonging to the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sudan in Omdurman, and no investigation
took place into the incident. At the beginning of 2012, a group of
local citizens again burned a Christian compound of the Evangelical
Presbyterian Church in el Gerif West area in Khartoum. A Salafist
Sheikh was accused of publically mobilizing his followers to carry out
this act, but the police did not investigate and the authorities did
not bring any official charges against the alleged perpetrators. In
the same year, local authorities in Khartoum State demolished the
premises of the Episcopal Church of Haj Yusif on the pretext that it
had been built without planning permission from authorities, despite
the Church being established there since the 1970s.

In 2014, the attacks on churches continued. In July of that year, the
authorities demolished one of the churches of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Sudan in Tayba Alahamda area in northern Khartoum. In
December 2014, the authorities stripped the Evangelical Church in
Khartoum North of a large portion of its land and destroyed some of
its buildings on the pretext of allocating the land to investment.
This effectively stopped the activities of the church. The authorities
also closed down the Pentecostal Church, located in Said Abdelrahman
Street in central Khartoum without giving any reasons.  In October
2015, local authorities demolished the buildings of the Lutheran
Evangelical Church in West Omdurman once again under the cover of
“lack of planning permission” despite the Church having been there
since 1990s.

In addition to the attack on churches, harassment against Christian
clerics continued in the same period. In October 2013, the Sudanese
authorities arrested Zonjal Abraham Mikhail a deacon in the
Evangelical Church and withdrew his Sudanese passport. In July of that
same year, the NISS arrested five priests of the Evangelical
Presbyterian Church; Raafat Said Musad, Farouq Angelo, Noah James,
Daoud Fadul and George Youhana, members of the elected Management
Committee for the Church. All arrested priests were accused of
disturbing public order and social peace. They were later released on
warranty without charges - but only after the Ministry of Guidance and
Religious Affairs dissolved their Committee and appointed a new body
to manage the Church. NISS also detained Anba Ilya, the bishop of the
Church of Khartoum, hours before the celebration of Christmas in late
2013.

In December 2014, NISS arrested the visiting South Sudanese priests
Yat Michael and Peter Yen on the grounds simply that they had sent a
letter to the Office of Religious Affairs at the Ministry of Guidance
and Religious Affairs, enquiring about the reasons for the arrests of
some religious leaders. Both evangelical priests were charged with
spying and incitement of war against the state. The detention of
priests Yat Michael and Peter Yen continued until August 2015 when a
court ordered their release. In November 2015 NISS re-detained them
and appealed the court ruling, claiming that new evidence had been
obtained.

Denial of religious diversity in the public sphere

In addition to the individual targeting of Christian religious
leaders, there has been broader state practice which has further
undermined the religious rights of Sudanese Christians. Since 2011,
for example, the government has stopped the celebration of Christmas
as an official holiday, alongside other non-Muslim religious
occasions, including refusing to broadcast these celebrations through
the state-own media outlets.

The most systematic and government-driven religious discrimination and
attacks against religious freedoms, however, have been suffered by the
people of the Nuba Mountains/South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The
security apparatus appears to consider their churches in Khartoum as
centers of undesirable gatherings and their leaders as opinion leaders
who are categorised as security threats given their influence in their
parishes. This combination of ethnic and religious targeting and
discrimination against Sudanese citizens of Nuba Mountains/South
Kordofan and Blue Nile origin has become a key tool of the political
conflict in the two regions. Such actions by the regime aim at
generating support from extremist Islamic circles and misleading the
Sudanese public so that the actual causes of the wars in the two
regions are misunderstood. The result of this systematic religious
discrimination is not only the exposure of citizens from Nuba
Mountains/South Kordofan and Blue Nile to a double oppression (ethnic
and religious targeting) but also the masking of historic failures of
governance, political and social grievances and uneven development
which are the foundation of the conflict.

The gravity of the religious discrimination and the systematic
violations of religious freedom experienced by Sudanese Christians
have already deepened the fragmentation of the Sudanese social fabric.
The insistence on Sharia laws and the holy war (Jihad) pursued by the
same regime during the 1990s against its citizens in southern Sudan,
to a large degree, led to the separation of a significant part of the
country (the Republic of South Sudan). Without understanding and
addressing the root causes and consequences of religious
discrimination, the continuation of such discrimination, in
association with other layers of discrimination (ethnic, gender,
geographic and class), is likely to lead to further fragmentation.

One major hazard of this religious targeting is the creation of space
for the growth of radical extremist groups. Al Qeada and its
affiliates, and now ISIS, have been known for recruiting youth from
Sudan. Sudan is increasingly seen as a place of study, contact with
and staging ground for, the global jihadi movement. Formal government
encouragement of targeting and discriminating against Christians and
other religions is providing a safe womb for the further growth of
extremism.

Significance of religious freedom in national integration

Sudanese Christians, other non-Muslims and Muslims who express their
faith through diverse traditions are full citizens who must enjoy
their full citizenship and constitutional rights without being
subjected to discrimination.

Democratic forces in Sudan should raise their voices in support of
these groups on the understanding that the only peaceful and stable
future for Sudan is one based on the total acceptance of the rich
cultural, religious and ethnic diversity of the Sudanese social
fabric.
Civil society should also play a major role and engage in national
projects which reflect on, and promote, Sudan’s historical religious
and cultural diversity.

Political parties and leaders should prioritise the maintenance of
religious and cultural freedoms as core principles in any revision of
the constitution and new constitutional arrangements. Parties to
Sudan’s conflicts should ensure that protection of religious and
cultural freedoms and rights is a core part of any peace agreement
which is negotiated in the context of the various conflicts.

The Sudanese government should be rational and responsible and look
for the better good of its people by respecting the natural and
acquired rights of Sudanese citizens. Although there is no hope of
such action from the Government of Sudan, SDFG will keep calling upon
all parties to respect the rights of Sudanese citizens on equal bases.

Sudan Democracy First Group
in...@democracyfirstgroup.org
***

END
______________________
John Ashworth

ashwor...@gmail.com

+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile)
+211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile)
+44 787 976 8030 (UK mobile)
+88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone)
Skype: jashworth1

PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya

This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily
reflect the views of any organisation

--
--
The content of this message does not necessarily reflect John Ashworth's views. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, John Ashworth is not the author of the content and the source is always cited.

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudan-john-ashworth" group.
To post to this group, send email to sudan-joh...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sudan-john-ashw...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.co.za/group/sudan-john-ashworth
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudans-john-ashworth" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sudans-john-ashw...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sudans-john-ashworth.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.