Religious liberty in Sudan according to the State Department of the United States

This article presents the situation of the freedom of religion to the Sudan according to the annual report 2006 carried out by the the United States on the freedom of religion in the world.

The situation of the religious liberty in Sudan according to the United States

The temporary national Convention of 2005 institutes the freedom of religion in all the country and one could note certain improvements in this field for the period covered by this report/ratio. However, the regional distinctions in the Constitution negotiated within the framework of the total Peace agreement bring disparities in the treatment of the religious minorities between North and the South. The Constitution preserved the charia as source of the legislation in the States apart from the south of Sudan whereas she recognizes the “popular consensus” and “the values and the habits of the Sudanese people, including her traditions and her religious beliefs” like sources of the legislation in the South.

the government of the south of Sudan respects the rights of the Christians and the Moslems in the ten States of the South as requires it its separate temporary constitution, signed on December 5th, 2005, but the new government of continuous national unit to impose restrictions on the Christians of North, in particular in their refusing permits building new churches. The national government requires that all pupils of North study Islam at the school, that they are Moslem or not, even if they are registered in private Catholic schools. The temporary national Constitution envisages the establishment of a Commission on the rights of the not-Moslems in the capital, Khartoum, to guarantee that the not-Moslems do not suffer unduly from the application of the charia but, at the end of the period covered by the report/ratio, it had not been created yet.

the dialog between the Christian and Moslem groups continues under the auspices of the Sudanese interreligieux Council, ONG supported by the government of national unit and the Sudanese Council of the churches which includes/understands catholic groups, orthodoxe and Protestant. This council supported the efforts in favor of peace and the reconciliation between Christians and Moslems while sponsoring, in July 2005, with the American Institute for peace, a conference on the role of the religious leaders in the process of construction of peace.

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