Sudan To Ban Feminine Genital Mutilation, Permit Alcohol For Non-Muslims

Khartoum:

Sudan will allow non-Muslims to eat alcohol and strengthen girls’s rights, together with banning feminine genital mutilation (FGM), its justice minister mentioned late on Saturday, in a reversal of just about 4 many years of hardline Islamist insurance policies.

About three% of Sudan’s inhabitants is non-Muslim, in response to the United Nations.

Alcoholic drinks have been banned since former President Jaafar Nimeiri launched Islamic regulation in 1983, throwing bottles of whisky into the Nile within the capital Khartoum.

The transition authorities which took over after autocrat Omar al-Bashir was toppled final 12 months has vowed to guide Sudan to democracy, finish discrimination and make peace with rebels.

Non-Muslims will not be criminalised for ingesting alcohol in personal, Justice Minister Nasredeen Abdulbari advised state tv. For Muslims, the ban will stay. Offenders are usually flogged below Islamic regulation.

Sudan can even decriminalise apostasy and ban FGM, a follow which generally entails the partial or complete removing of the exterior genitalia of women and girls, he mentioned.

Girls can even not want a allow from male members of their households to journey with their kids.

Nimeiri’s introduction of Islamic regulation was main catalyst for a 22-year-long battle between Sudan’s Muslim north and the primarily Christian south that led in 2011 to South Sudan’s secession.

Bashir prolonged Islamic regulation after he took energy in 1989.

Sudanese Christians stay primarily in Khartoum and within the Nuba mountains close to the South Sudan border. Some Sudanese additionally observe conventional African beliefs.

The transition authorities led by Abdalla Hamdok runs the nation in an uneasy coalition with the navy which helped take away Bashir after months of mass protests.

(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)