Sudan: Persecution and Control

Source:  http://rlprayerbulletin.blogspot.com/ 

Date:  March 22, 2023

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 686 

SUDAN: PERSECUTION AND CONTROL
plus a quick update from Egypt (below)
by Elizabeth Kendal

Awatif Abdalla Kaki, a 27-year-old mother of four, lives in the city of Omdurman (adjacent to Khartoum). On 27 January she surrendered her life to Christ after a relative told her about salvation through faith in Jesus. A few days later, Abdalla had a dream in which Jesus appeared to her. Later, while at the home of her parents, Abdalla told her family about the dream and that she had become a follower of Jesus Christ. Abdalla’s immediate family, all of whom are Muslim, were horrified. Initially, her husband tried to force her to renounce her faith by chaining her legs. When that didn’t work, he tightened the chains so as to cause wounds. When that did work, he decided she must have lost her mind, so he had her involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she was ‘treated’ – against her will – with injections and electric shocks. Meanwhile, he took their four children – the oldest of whom is eight years old – to live with his parents. The source (whose identity is withheld for security reasons) told Morning Star News (19 March) that Abdalla ‘continues to live in mental anguish’, adding, ‘I fear for her safety and pray that she can get a refuge outside her home so that she has peace of mind and can grow in her new faith.’

Sudan's Arab Islamist Deep State, thoroughly entrenched. 
Asharq Alawsat (Saudi newspaper) cartoon (April 2019).
[see RLPB 613 (1 Sept 2021)]

Apart from a short period between April 2019, when the military sided with the people and ousted the Islamist, Arab-supremacist regime of Omar al-Bashir [RLPB 502 (15 May 2019)], and October 2021, when the military subsequently ousted the civilian administration and established a military junta [RLPB 621 (27 Oct 2021)], Sudan has long been one of the most difficult places to be a Christian. Fundamentalist Islam has very deep roots. Through the 19th Century, Sudan was part of Ottoman-Egypt. In 1899, after the Mahdist Revolt (a Sudanese Arab religious revolt which forced out the Turks but failed to establish a Caliphate) Sudan came under British-Egyptian rule. After Sudan was declared independent (1 January 1956), Islamist Arab-supremacists quickly came to dominate Khartoum and all Sudan’s institutions. The difficulty of freeing multi-racial, multi-religious Sudan from the grip of intolerant fundamentalist Islam and a thoroughly entrenched and heavily invested Arab Islamist Deep State cannot be overstated.

In April 2022, Al-Monitor reported that, since the military coup of October 2021, the junta has been busy rehabilitating Bashir loyalists. Numerous loyalists, including senior officials in former president Omar al-Bashir’s now banned National Congress Party (NCP) have been acquitted, released from prison, had confiscated assets returned and been appointed to high state positions, including in the government. According to Al-Monitor, ‘activists, lawyers and journalists are struggling to keep track of the process in light of the speed at which it is taking place’.

Sudanese Christians, Khartoum (May 2022)

In November 2021, just weeks after the coup, a judge in Khartoum dismissed a case which had been brought (pre-coup) by the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) against the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Affairs. As Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) explains (10 Feb 2023): ‘In Sudan, church committees recognised by the Ministry of Guidance and Endowments, which oversees religious affairs, are legally empowered to control a church’s affairs. During the al-Bashir era, the government abused this provision…’ by establishing illegal, illegitimate church committees which acted, at the regime’s behest, against church interests, including selling off church property. With the case dismissed, SPEC cannot regain control of its affairs; the junta will retain control.

In January 2022, the junta appointed Mr Abdul Ati Ahmed Abbas as Minister of Guidance and Religious Endowments. Unbeknown to SPEC, Minister Abbas re-appointed the illegal, illegitimate church committee created during the al-Bashir era. In January 2023 SPEC’s legitimate church committee discovered that the illegitimate, junta-appointed church committee had rezoned land which the church owned in Khartoum, divided it into over 100 parcels and was selling it off! A Bible training school and three other church properties are located on the land. CSW reports (10 Feb 2023): ‘The legitimate committee has submitted a case to the administrative court to request that the Chief Justice hold 78 parcels of land that have not been sold and return the designation of the land to agricultural, as it had been before. However, there are concerns that the request will not be granted due to the return of Islamists in the military government and interference in the judicial process.’ Previously, on 25 May 2022, police arrived at a SPEC property in Omdurman, after a court ruled that the SPEC properties could be demolished. Christians suspect the junta wants to seize and sell the land. An appeal is underway (CSW, 25 May 2022).

PLEASE PRAY THAT OUR GOD WILL INTERVENE:

• for Awatif Abdalla Kaki, to provide her with a safe house and with Christian support; may the Lord show amazing grace to her husband, that he might be saved and the family re-united around the Cross. Lord have mercy.
• to protect Sudan’s churches from unjust predatory actions perpetrated by the junta at the behest of Islamists and greedy speculators; may the plans of the wicked not succeed (Psalm 21:11)! May the Lord provide the Church in Sudan with everything she needs and redeem her suffering for HIS good purpose. We pray especially for the legal battles currently being waged by the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC); may justice prevail.
• to liberate Sudan’s many peoples, tribes and tongues from their captivity to an intolerant fundamentalist Islam and a thoroughly entrenched and heavily invested Arab Islamist Deep State. May the dream of a free and democratic ‘New Sudan’ – the dream of those who protested through the ‘December [2018] Revolution’ – be realised; for the sake of the Church and the glory of God.

Summon your power, O God, the power, O God, by which you have worked for us. … Nobles shall come from Egypt; Cush [Sudan; see map] shall hasten to stretch out her hands to God (Psalm 68:28,31 ESV).