_WORLD WATCH______________________________
____________________ Sudan ________________

Convert faces consequences
Reports of persecution
The human-rights group Middle East Concern has launched an appeal for a Sudanese Christian who converted from Islam and has suffered persecution and abuse by government officials for his change of faith.

Mohamed Saeed converted to Christianity last December while he was studying economics in India. Some Sudanese friends reported this to his family who threatened to disown Saeed if he did not return home. Since his family was financing his stay in India and his studies, Saeed returned to Sudan in July.

On his arrival in Khartoum, Saeed’s family took away his return ticket and his passport. They threatened to turn him over to the police if he did not return to Islam. Saeed continued to attend church services and other Christian meetings. In mid-September his uncle, who leads the family’s opposition to his conversion, threatened to kill him if he continued to attend these prayer meetings. Saeed fled the house and went to live with a friend.

On September 22 he was returning from a meeting with a local pastor when security officers arrested him, detaining him overnight, during which time he was tortured. Three fingernails were pulled from his fingers. In addition he mentioned that they “put fire in his chest”—probably referring to the practice of putting a sack with hot peppers over someone’s head, a method often used by Sudanese security police. During the interrogation the police accused him of being an agent for the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, the main armed opposition group fighting against the Khartoum regime. He was forced to sign a statement that he would stop attending Christian meetings and would not work with political opposition movements. Since being released, he has lived under house arrest at his parents’ home.

Local sources report that two other Christian converts in Khartoum have disappeared. One of them, Alladin Omer Ajjabna, was arrested and tortured in June, then held in isolation for three months. Before he disappeared he told his friends that he had been called to police headquarters for identification by the person who accused him of apostasy.

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