Authorities Arrest Christian Leader in Al Jazirah State, Sudan, in School Takeover

Authorities Arrest Christian Leader in Al Jazirah State, Sudan, in School Takeover

A dozen teachers also detained, released on bail

By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST News Service

MADANI, SUDAN (ANS – September 13, 2016) -- Authorities in southeastern Sudan arrested the headmaster [principal] of a Christian school last week and took over its property, sources said.

According to the Sudan Correspondent of Morning Star News (http://morningstarnews.org), armed police and officials from the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) on Sept. 5 arrested the Rev. Samuel Suliman and 12 teachers at the school in Madani, capital of Al Jazirah state. The Christians were accused of supporting the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N), a rebel group fighting government forces farther south in the Nuba Mountains state of South Kordofan.

Strongly denying the charge after the accused were released on bail following eight hours in jail, Suliman told Morning Star News that police presented a letter from the National Ministry of Guidance and Endowments, addressed to the State Ministry of Social Welfare, ordering the handover of Evangelical Basic School to the government.

“Over the past days, we have experienced difficult times in the school,” Suliman said, asking for prayer.

Morning Star News went on to say that the school serves more than 1,000 students, ages 3 to 18, in Madani. Established by the American Mission in 1901, it belongs to the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church.

“Harassment, arrests and persecution of Christians have intensified since the secession of South Sudan in July 2011,” stated the Sudan correspondent of the news service. “The Sudanese Minister of Guidance and Endowments announced in April 2013 that no new licenses would be granted for building new churches in Sudan, citing a decrease in the South Sudanese population. Sudan since 2012 has expelled foreign Christians and bulldozed church buildings on the pretext that they belonged to South Sudanese.”

Sudan fought a civil war with the South Sudanese from 1983 to 2005, and in June 2011, shortly before the secession of South Sudan the following month, the government began fighting a rebel group in the Nuba Mountains that has its roots in South Sudan. The rebels in the Nuba Mountains were formerly involved with the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) forces fighting Khartoum before the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

Fighting between Sudan and South Sudan broke out in June 2011, when Khartoum forcefully attempted to disarm the SPLA-N in South Kordofan by force rather than awaiting a process of disarmament as called for in the CPA. When the CPA was signed in 2005, the people of South Kordofan were to vote on whether to join the north or the south, but the state governor suspended the process.

“Ethnic Nuba, along with Christians, face discrimination in Sudan, where President Omar al-Bashir has vowed to adopt a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognize only Islamic culture and the Arabic language, said Morning Star News.

“The Nuba people have longstanding complaints against Khartoum – including neglect, oppression and forced conversions to Islam in a 1990s jihad – but as Sudanese citizens on the northern side of the border, they were never given the option of secession in the 2005 peace pact between northern and southern Sudan.

“Due to its treatment of Christians and other human rights violations, Sudan has been designated a Country of Particular Concern by the U.S. State Department since 1999, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended the country remain on the list in its 2016 report.”

Sudan ranked eighth on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2016 World Watch List of countries where Christians face most persecution.

Photo: 1) Student at a school in in Rumbek. (Photo: Maria Furrer (UNICEF Sweden) 2) Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir speaking. (AFP). 3) Map of Al Jazirah state, Sudan. (Wikipedia). 4) Dan Wooding on a reporting assignment.

About the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning author, broadcaster and journalist, who was born in Nigeria, West Africa, of British missionary parents, Alfred and Anne Wooding. Dan now lives in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for some 53 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. Dan is the founder/president of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS), and is also the author of some 45 books. Before moving to the United States from the UK in June of 1982, Dan worked as a senior reporter for two of Great Britain’s largest circulation newspapers, and was also an interviewer for BBC Radio in London. He has reported widely from the hot-spots of the world for ANS, and has been imprisoned in Nigeria, and survived a bomb attack in El Salvador.

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