CHRISTIAN WOMAN SUBJECTED TO WHIPPING UNDER ISLAMIC LAW

SUDAN

15 June 2004

In Khartoum, Sudan, a young Christian woman was fined and whipped for not wearing the hijab (headscarf) in public after a group of public-order policemen arrested her when she travelled home from work on 13 April.

Cecilia John Holland, 27, boarded a minibus at Badr Gardens to travel to her home in the suburb of Haj Yousif on the evening on 13 April when she was arrested for not wearing the hijab. About 10 police forced the bus to stop and dragged her from it. She was modestly dressed in long sleeves and an ankle-length skirt, but her hair was uncovered in Khartoum temperatures of 100-105 degrees F (37-41 °C).

The group of policemen forced her into their vehicle, striking her in the process. Four other women were already inside. When seven more had been arrested they were taken to a police station and held overnight. The next morning, 14 April, Cecilia was taken to Sizana Islamic Court where the Muslim policemen testified against her. She was not allowed to make any kind of statement or speak in her own defence.

She was accused of “standing near a garden at night” and not wearing a scarf on her head. They also misrepresented Cecilia by stating that she was “jobless”, refusing to register her employment. She is a catering officer for a local non-governmental organisation and holds a diploma in catering from Khartoum Applied Sciences College. Cecilia is one of more than two million non-Muslim southerners in and around the capital Khartoum who have been displaced as a result of the 21-year civil war between the mainly Arab Muslim North and the mainly African Christian and animist South, who rebelled when the government tried to impose Islamic law on them.

The Islamic court declared Cecilia guilty and sentenced her to 40 lashes on the back and fined her 10,000 dinars (about  £28), equivalent to one third of her monthly salary. She was released that afternoon after being whipped and paying the fine. Earlier in April, the government had renewed its insistence that all Sudanese citizens residing in Khartoum would be under shari’a (Islamic law). Cecilia has a European grandparent and therefore has paler skin and longer hair than most southern Sudanese. While the police may have initially mistaken her for an Arab Muslim, her name and accent should have proved her Christian and southern Sudanese identity to them. However, the police told her that no-one, “not even a non-Muslim” was exempt from the Islamic dress code.

PRAY

* Please pray for Cecilia, for her safety and recovery. Pray for the personal religious freedoms of Sudanese Christians.

* Praise God for a number of peace agreements recently signed, with the aim of bringing the civil war to an end. Pray that the government will ensure a real, lasting peace and that there will be full human rights and religious liberty for all Sudanese. While government troops appear to have withdrawn from many areas in the south, government-sponsored militias continue to harm civilians. Pray for safety for the Christian communities in southern Sudan.

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