Sudan signs deal with rebel group to remove Islam as state religion. (WION News/YouTube)
Sudan’s transitional government has agreed a deal with rebel groups which ends 30 years of rule under Islamic law and Islam as the official state religion.
Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and a leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM–N), Abdelaziz Al-Hilu, signed the accord on Thursday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
“The state shall not establish an official religion,” says the agreement. “No citizen shall be discriminated against based on their religion. For Sudan to become a democratic country where the rights of all citizens are enshrined, the constitution should be based on the principle of ‘separation of religion and state’, in the absence of which the right to self-determination must be respected.”
The development comes several days after the government agreed a peace deal with a coalition of rebel groups in the Sudan Revolutionary Front in Juba, South Sudan. The final signing of the deal will be scheduled next month, when it is also hoped that the conflicts in the Darfur region and other parts of the country could also come to an end.
