Freedom of Religion in Sudan
The multiplicity of ethnic and religious communities has created divisions in the social setting in Sudan. This chapter explores the topic of freedom of religion according to the UN conventions. The focus is directed at how various religious communities in Khartoum perceive and assess the way their freedom of religion is guaranteed in the State of Sudan. Since Sudan ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR (1966)) in 1986, the regime which came to power in 1989 was committed to grant citizens freedom of religion. The chapter discusses three issues linked to religious freedom for religious minorities in Sudan: restrictions on the building of churches, the prohibition of alcohol, and representation in the public sphere. It further discusses two restrictions on religious freedom regarding the Muslim majority: apostasy and compulsory female dress code. Keywords:alcohol; apostasy; Christian churches; female dress code; ICCPR; Muslim majority; religious freedom; religious minorities; Sudan
The Accused Privacy Rights in the Sudanese Legal System
The purpose of this article is to discuss the rights of the accused person in the Sudanese legal system. Similar with other criminal justice systems, the Sudanese law do provide rights for the accused person to enable him or her to defend him or herself. These rights are considered as the core idea behind the thinking of human rights in the criminal proceedings. However the problematic issue here is to what extent does Sudanese law provide and protect the accused right especially the privacy right. It is also pertinent to balance the law enforcement interest in evidence collection in criminal proceedings with the privacy right of the accused in the Sudanese legal system. We found that there are evidence of privacy right protection on the accused within the Sudanese legal system. The result of this research shows that in Sudan, the privacy right was provided for the first time at the constitutional level in the T1973 Constitution (Articles 42 and 43). It has later received recognition in the 1985 Transitional Constitution (Articles 24 and 30), the 1998 Constitution (Article 29) and the 2005 Interim National Constitution (Article 37). At the statutory level, legislative protection is given to this right in the Penal Code 1991 (Section 166), the Code of Criminal Procedure 1991 (Sections 86 through 95) and the Informatic Offences (Combating) Act 2007 (Sections 16 and 6). The method adopted in this article is a qualitative content legal analysis of primary and secondary data obtained from legislation, case-law and various literature.
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1