Several devoted Christians in and around Sudan’s main cities are reportedly prevented from worshiping by authorities and angry mobs despite government pledges to end over three decades of hardline Islamic rule.
Christian converts in Sudan are rejoicing after the transitional government scrapped legislation that made leaving Islam punishable by death, Worthy News learned.
Sudan’s transitional government agreed last week to establish an independent national commission for religious freedom, The Christian Post reported. Together with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) group which fought against ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir, the Transitional Sovereign Council is forming the commission in order to “address all issues relating to religious freedom in order to affirm the principle of peaceful coexistence in the country.”
Two churches in Sudan have been burned down by arsonists in the last month, Sudanese Radio Dabanga reported. This is despite Christian hopes for religious freedom following the ousting of dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. Radio Dabanga was notified of the attacks by Dimas Marajan, a local lawyer and human rights activist.
Christian aid groups, along with pesticide-wielding UN troops, are deploying to eastern Africa to fight a locust swarm that experts say is the worst to hit the region in 70 years and could grow by 500 times between now and June.
In a gesture of reconciliation following years of persecution, the new religious affairs minister of Sudan, Nasr al-Din Mufreh, attended Christmas celebrations in Khartoum to personally apologize for former dictator Omar al-Bashir’s harassment of Christians.
In a discouraging sign, 9 Sudanese pastors originally indicted under Islamist dictator Omar al-Bashir have been brought up on charges again.
Muslims and Christians in Sudan are unifying under the banner of democracy after a rare window of opportunity opened following the ousting of longtime military dictator Omar Al-Bashir.
After torturing them and threatening to charge them with serious crimes, authorities in Sudan have released 13 Christians arrested in the Darfur Region, sources said.
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that a Khartoum-based court has ordered the authorities to immediately surrender church property belonging to the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC). Authorities confiscated the property on February 11, 2018 when the church was demolished.
Authorities in Sudan yesterday demolished a church building in North Khartoum, sources said.
In an ongoing bid by the government of Sudan to take over leadership of the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC), police on Sunday (Oct. 22) arrested five SCOC church leaders after they refused to comply with an order to refrain from worship, sources told Morning Star News.
A month after seven church leaders were arrested, interrogated and released on bail, police in Sudan detained and questioned another church leader in Omdurman on Friday (Sept. 22), sources said.
Police in Sudan arrested and interrogated seven church leaders last week in Omdurman, Sudan before releasing them on bail, sources said.
The Sudanese government demolished another church on Wednesday (2 August), the day after Members of the Khartoum state parliament rejected an order by the Minister of Education for all Christian schools in the capital to open on a Sunday.
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that a new bipartisan letter from the US House of Representatives was sent today to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, requesting that he raise the issue of Christian churches being targeted in Sudan with the Sudanese government.
Last December, two evangelical pastors from the Church of Christ in Sudan were taken from their churches and thrown into jail. Last month, the Rev. Abdulraheem Kodi and the Rev. Kuwa Shamal Abu Zumam were charged with numerous offenses, including waging war against the state, espionage and undermining Sudan’s constitutional system.
Last month, Sudanese authorities deported at least 442 Eritrean refugees.
A pastor could face the death penalty after his attorney told International Christian Concern that the Sudanese government is planning to charge him with espionage and other crimes against the state.
Last week Sudanese authorities arrested yet another cleric without any charges.