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Bloated bodies in the Nile show Sudan protesters were right to fear the arrival of Saudi and UAE money

South Africa pisses on the rule of law

Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir is a wanted war criminal, the subject of two ICC arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Over the weekend, he attended a summit of African leaders in Johannesburg. The South African government granted him immunity. Human rights activists went to court seeking an order for his arrest, and won an injunction forbidding him from leaving the country. Today, the South African government ignored that and allowed him to depart:

The Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, has flown home, leaving South Africa in defiance of a court order that he must remain to face an international arrest warrant.

[...]

As Bashir’s plane took off from Waterkloof military airfield outside Pretoria, the local high court was hearing arguments over an application that would have forced the South African government to arrest him.

A South African judge criticised the government for allowing Bashir to leave. “The conduct of the respondents to the extent that they have failed to take steps to arrest and detain the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, is inconsistent with the constitution of the Republic of South Africa,” Dunstan Mlambo said.

The high court ruled after Bashir’s departure that he should have been detained.

So, we have a government defying its own courts to protect a war criminal. There's a name for people who do that: accessories. And they should be tried for it.

No freedom of religion in Sudan

Freedom of religion is something we take for granted. Its nobody's business but your own what you believe, and its certainly nothing to do with the government. In Sudan, its a different story:

A Sudanese court has sentenced a pregnant woman to hang for apostasy - the abandonment of her religious faith - after she married a Christian man.

According to Amnesty International Dr Maryam Yahya Ibrahim who is eight months pregnant, was raised a Christian.

But the authorities consider her to be a Muslim, because that was the faith of her father, who was absent during her childhood.

She was also sentenced to receive 100 lashes for adultery because the court deemed that her marriage was not valid on the grounds that her marriage to a Christian man from South Sudan was void under Sudan's version of Islamic law, which says Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslims.

But lest anyone think they're inhumane, they're not going to beat and kill her until after she's given birth. Isn't that nice of them?

This is absolutely barbaric. Its not up to the government to decide what you believe - its up to you. And the idea that a marriage could be declared invalid because a party didn't belong to the "right" religion is simply ridiculous.

Barbaric

What happens if you get raped in Sudan? The police ignore your complaint, then charge you with adultery:

A pregnant teenager who says she was gang-raped has been charged with adultery in Sudan, and faces a possible sentence of death by stoning. The country's judiciary has received millions of pounds in aid from the UK.

[...]

The young divorcee claims that last August, when she was about three months pregnant, she was lured to an empty property in the capital, Khartoum, and violently gang-raped by seven men. She reported the incident to a police officer at the time, but he decided against pursuing an investigation because of the Eid holiday. He was initially charged with negligence, but this was dropped on Tuesday.

According to SIHA, the attack was filmed by one of the men on his phone and circulated on social media six months later, leading to the arrest of both the alleged perpetrators and victim. The case came to court earlier this month. Five men, understood to be between 18 to 22, are accused of adultery; a sixth, who says he did not have sex with the woman, is accused of gross indecency.

The woman is charged with adultery, although she denied the charges and is pleading not guilty on the basis that the sexual act was against her will. Her attempt to make a complaint of rape has been denied on the technicality that she is under investigation on other charges and she should have complained at the time of the incident. Her request for bail has been denied by the attorney general.

Reading this, its pretty clear: Sudan does not have a justice system, so much as one which excuses rapists while persecuting their victims.