19.09.2008 - Source: US Department of State

Northern Sudan: Blasphemy and defaming religion are punishable by imprisonment; converts are occasionally subjected to intense scrutiny, ostracism, intimidation, or are encouraged to leave the country ("International Religious Freedom Report 2008") [ID 24776]

"Blasphemy and defaming religion are punishable by imprisonment in the north, although these restrictions are rarely enforced.

Authorities in the north occasionally subject converts to intense scrutiny, ostracism, intimidation, or encourage them to leave the country.

In the south, there are no penalties for apostasy, blasphemy, or defaming religion, and proselytizing is common."

Document(s): Open document

29.11.2007 - Source: Guardian

British teacher charged in court with 'inciting hatred' for allowing pupils to name teddy Muhammad ("'Blasphemy' teacher appears in court") [ID 24335]

Document(s): Open document

01.02.2007 - Source: Reporters Sans Frontières

Journalist tried for "blasphemy" murdered one year after trial ("Annual Report 2007") [ID 24336]

"Sudanese journalists are easy prey for the government. More than 15 of them were arrested during 2006, despite the official lifting of censorship and a state of emergency, in July 2005. One of them was even murdered, traumatising the whole profession, which was already living in fear of government crackdowns.

The decapitated body of Mohamed Taha, editor of the privately-owned Sudanese daily al-Wifaq, was found by police in a street in Khartoum's southern suburbs on 6 September after several masked men had snatched him from his home in the east of the capital the evening before.

Mohamed Taha had been tried for "blasphemy" in 2005 after a law suit was brought by a fundamentalist group, Ansar al-Sunnah.

The offending article, written by the journalist, himself a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, referred to a more than five-century old Islamic manuscript which apparently cast doubt on the prophet's genealogy.

After the articles appeared, imams in Khartoum organised major demonstrations to demand that the journalist be killed.

His paper was suspended for two months.

[...] At the end of the year, Sudanese investigators had not reached any satisfactory conclusion about the murder."

Document(s): Open document

12.05.2005 - Source: Reporters Sans Frontières

Journalist faces trial on blasphemy charges ("Alarm about trial of journalist on blasphemy charge") [#31965],  [ID 24337]

"Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm today about the climate of hate surrounding the blasphemy trial of Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed, the editor of the Sudanese daily newspaper Al-Wifaq, for whom the death penalty is being demanded not only by the prosecutor but also by the thousands of demonstrators who have been disrupting the trial."

Document(s): Open document