Posted: 07/18/2013 at 5:11pm | IP Logged

JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN (ANS) -- A Sudanese Christian has fled the country after authorities in Khartoum threatened to kill him for refusing to provide names of converts from Islam, sources said.

Sudanese authorities left a Presbyterian Church of Sudan building in ruins in January. (Morning Star News photo)

According to a story by Morning Star News, the Christian, a native of Sudan's Juba Mountains area, left the country last month after officials from the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) forced him to report to their offices nearly every day since raiding his home on Feb. 23.

Morning Star News said he added, "I am now threatened badly before them, and they were making me every day to be in their office, sayi ng if I refused to deal with them they will accuse me, with unknown fate."

Freedom of religion is a key provision of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Sudan is a signatory. But "apostasy," or leaving Islam, is punishable by death in Sudan under Article 126 of its 1991 Criminal Act, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

Sudan has not executed anyone for apostasy in almost two decades, but in 2011 and 2012 nearly 170 people were imprisoned and/or charged with the "crime," according to USCIRF.

Morning Star News said harassment, arrests and persecution of Christians have intensified since the secession of South Sudan in July 2011. That was when President Omar al-Bashir vowed to adopt a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognize only Islamic culture and the Arabic language.

South Sudan's secession has served as a pretext for Bashir's regime to bulldoze church buildings once owned by South Sudanese and to deport Christians based on their ethnicity, sources said.

In an April report, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) noted an increase in arrests, detentions and deportations of Christians since Dec. 2012. Morning Star News said the organization also reported that systematic targeting of Nuba and other ethnic groups suggests the resurgence of an official policy of "Islamization and Arabization."

Due to its treatment of Christians and other human rights violations, Sudan has been designated a Country of Particular Concern by the U.S. State Department since 1999, and in April USCIRF recommended the country remain on the list this year.

Church Raid

In Omdurman, Morning Star News reported, opposite Khartoum on the River Nile, plain-clothes police officials on June 25 raided the offices of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) in what church leaders called a bid to take over the property.

Without permission from government authorities, the officers entered the church compound and chased SPEC pastors and others out of the offices, a Christian leader said.

In apparent interference in church affairs, Morning Star News reported the officers said they had sided with some church officials in an administrative dispute and therefore were ordering church leaders to leave the premises or face arrest, said the Christian leader, who requested anonymity.

The government is trying to divide the leadership by becoming involved with administrative disputes within SPEC so that it can take control of the property, he said, without divulging the nature of the administrative conflict.

"The Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment is behind what is taking place in SPEC," he told Morning Star News by phone. "All that is happening now is because the government wants to confiscate the SPEC property."

Morning Star News said a government official denied the government was trying to divide the leadership, but admitted it had inserted itself into church affairs.

"We are not favorin g one side against another," Abdallah Hassan, director of Church Management in the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment, told Morning Star News. "We wanted to solve the disputes, but our solution was rejected by the other group within SPEC. They need to hold a general assembly as soon as possible."

Southerners in Sudan

Noting that July 9 was the two-year anniversary of South Sudan's independence from Sudan, Morning Star News reported USCIRF officials said in a press statement that the legal status an estimated 500,000 southerners in Sudan remains unresolved.

"With the independence of South Sudan, senior Sudanese government officials have called for a more comprehensive and rigid application of Sharia law in Sudan, where southerners who are Christian have been subject to a range of religious freedom violations," USCIRF stated.

The statement continued, "In particular, there have been credible reports of the destruction of churches, refusal to permit construc tion of new churches and other forms of intimidation and harassment."

Morning Star News reported that South Sudanese lost citizenship in Sudan and were ordered to leave by March 1 2012. However, thousands have been stranded in the north due to job loss, poverty, transportation limitations and ethnic and tribal conflict in South Sudan.

Sudan and South Sudan signed an agreement on Sept. 27, 2012, to hold negotiations on citizenship rights for South Sudanese in Sudan and northerners living in South Sudan, but there has been no progress, according to USCIRF.

Morning Star News said South Sudanese Christians in Sudan have faced increased hostilities due to their ethnic origins - though thousands have little or no ties to South Sudan - as well as their faith.

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