Sudan's Justice minister says Islamic punishments shall be correctly implemented

Mar 27, 2002

KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudan's justice minister defended his country's application of Islamic punishments such as death by stoning and flogging, but said Wednesday that mistakes in their implementation will be avoided in the future.

Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin also criticized an emergency court ruling in December that sentenced an 18-year old pregnant woman to death by stoning. He said the ruling was "excessive and cruel" and should not be passed on the elderly, pregnant women, or children.

 Abok Alfa Abok, a Christian member of the large southern Dinka tribe, was pregnant at the time she was tried for adultery in the southwestern state of Darfur. She appealed the court decision and her sentence was commuted in February to 75 lashes. Abok had delivered by the time her sentence was carried out.

 The New-York based Human Rights Watch condemned Abok's death sentence as "cruel and inhuman" and said trials before emergency courts are unfair.

 Yassin, the Sudanese justice minister, said he opposed the December death sentence but declined to comment at the time to avoid interfering with court procedures.

 "Now I am saying this ruling was not appropriate. In fact, it was excessive and cruel," Yassin told The Associated Press. Administrative measures will be taken to avoid such mistakes in the future, he said without elaborating.

 Yassin defended the use of strict Islamic penalties, which are in force in most of Sudan, arguing that they deter crime.

 "Flogging is a humiliating punishment because it is painful and degrading," Yassin said. "People try to avoid it and therefore crimes that result in flogging are curtailed."

 "Despite the particularity of the emergency courts, I stand for a court being compatible with the imperative of justice, such as proper procedures, proofs, and rules of law," he said.

 According to Human Rights Watch, Abok had no legal representation during court procedures which denied her a fair trial. The court procedures were conducted in Arabic, not Abok's native language.

 Yassin said Islamic criminal penalties shall be applied on Christians and Muslims alike wherever they are in place. Exemption from Islamic laws is subject to geographical basis, but a Christian living in a state where Islamic laws are observed is subject to their enforcement, he said.

Death by stoning, lashes and amputations are not enforced in South Sudan, where the majority of inhabitants are animists and Christians.

Fighting since 1983 between the Islamic government and southern rebels has claimed 2 million lives so far, mainly through war-induced famine, and left 4 millions displaced inside Sudan. The rebels are fighting for greater autonomy and religious freedom in the south, where most inhabitants follow traditional African beliefs."If a displaced person wishes to come to one region of the country then he has to be ready to observe laws in force in that region," Yassin said.

SUDAN:Khartoum admits Christian woman sentenced to stoning, but sentence commuted Sudan admitted for the first time that a young Christian woman had been condemned to death by stoning for adultery, but added that the sentence had been commuted to flogging because it was considered "inappropriate," a report said Thursday. 

"The penalty was inappropriate, severe and excessive, and was consequently commuted to flogging," Minister of Justice Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin told the independent daily Al-Ayam. It was 1st official statement concerning Abok Alfa Akok, 18, who was condemned by a court in the western city of Nyala on December 8 to death by stoning in line with Khartoum's interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia. The Rome-based charitable organisation Sant'Egidio and other non- government organisations including Human Rights Watch had organised a campaign to save the woman's life, but Sudanese authorities had previously kept quiet on the matter. 

The young woman, pregnant and unmarried, was a Christian from the Dinka tribe, one of the main ethnic groups in the south of the country. On February 12, after it was ordered to review its verdict by Sudan's Supreme Court, the Nyala court commuted the sentenced to flogging. The sentence was carried out the same day, with Akok receiving 75 lashes, informed source said. The sources said the young woman had already given birth when she was flogged. In his comments with Al-Ayam, Yassin concurred that flogging was a "human rights violation." "It is degrading and severe, but at the same time it is necessary for decreasing the rate of crime," he said.

 Flogging "is sometimes mistakenly imposed on a pregnant, elderly or minor woman but this mistake is dealt with administratively to avoid its recurrence, " Yassin said. The sharia law in force in Sudan is one of the main grievances of the mostly Christian and animist rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, engaged in an 18-year old civil war against the Khartoum regime.

A 35 year-old Nigerian woman, Safiya Husaini, became the subject of an international outcry after an Islamic tribunal condemned her to death by stoning for adultery in October 2001.The charges against Husaini were finally dismissed, but a 2nd Nigerian woman, Amina Lawal, was condemned on March 22 to death by stoning after she had a child while divorced. Nigeria's justice minister has declared the strict Islamic law operated in 12 northern states to be in violation of the constitution.