JUBA, South Sudan — A Sudanese Christian has fled the country after authorities in Khartoum threatened to kill him for refusing to divulge names of converts from Islam, sources said.
The Christian, a native of Sudan’s Juba Mountains area, left the country in June after officials from the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) forced him to report to their offices nearly every day since raiding his home Feb. 23.
The detained Christian, whose name is withheld for security reasons, said officials, some of them armed, took him to jail Feb. 23 for interrogation after confiscating his passport and other documents, cell phone, computer, two laptops, iPad and the mobile phones of his brother and sisters.
That night they took him to his workplace in Khartoum and seized papers and $310, he said. After visiting another site of his workplace the next day, a Sunday, the NISS officials accused him of being a spy for insurgents in the Nuba Mountains and said he and another Christian taken into custody would therefore be killed in accordance with Sudanese law.
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.
Share with others: