Pressure for End of Islamic Law Appears to Be Rising in Sudan

Public pressure appeared to be growing in Sudan on Wednesday to end the religion-based social restrictions imposed by the now-ousted President Jaafar Numeiri.

Sudan’s new leader, Gen. Abdul-Rahman Suwar Dahab, met Wednesday with leaders of the professional unions that took part in the general strike that precipitated the coup. The abolition of Islamic law was one of the unions’ key demands in the strike, along with a specific date for a return to civilian rule.

The last civilian government in Sudan lasted five years until it was overthrown by Numeiri in 1969.

International telex and communication lines from Khartoum were cut again Wednesday afternoon, and some diplomats took this to mean that the meeting had not gone well and that the unions intended to resume their general strike. The international airport remained closed for the fifth day.

The new military regime has said it is considering easing Sudan’s application of sharia, or strict Islamic law. If it should yield to public sentiment, that would mark the first time that Islamic fundamentalism has suffered a major setback since the Iranian revolution, led by Shia Muslim clergymen, popularized religious extremism in 1979.

Dahab, meanwhile, said that a Cabinet will be formed to run the executive branch of government under the direction of his new 15-man Military Council.

The general also told his first news conference Wednesday that the priorities of his four-day-old regime are preserving national unity, solving economic problems and eventually transferring power to civilians.

Since Numeiri was toppled Saturday, there have been sporadic public demonstrations by Sudanese calling for an end to Islamic law and renewed access to things such as liquor.

Numeiri, once a heavy drinker, instituted Islamic law in September, 1983, in an attempt to curry political favor with the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that identifies with the religious zeal that dominated the early stages of Iran’s upheaval.

Numeiri launched the new era by ordering $5 million worth of liquor poured into the Nile River. A medical team from Saudi Arabia was brought in to discuss the techniques of “surgical amputations,” and two weeks later the hand of a thief was cut off in public. He died 10 days later of infection.

In the following 15 months, at least 50 amputations were carried out. Dozens of people, including some foreigners, were flogged for drinking alcohol. The new laws were applied not only to Muslims but also to the black, non-Arab Christians and animists who make up the southern minority.

Though Gen. Dahab’s 15-man junta has not given any clear signal that it will reverse Numeiri’s drive toward making Sudan an Islamic republic like Iran and Pakistan, Western political analysts consider such a move likely.

The junta had listed “judicial independence” as a top priority in its first communique issued after overthrowing Numeiri on Saturday, and late Tuesday it fired, without explanation, the chief justice, Fuad Amin Abdul-Rahman. The judge, whom Numeiri had appointed Oct. 1, had a reputation as a Muslim fundamentalist and was a strict interpreter of sharia.

Shortly thereafter, the junta accepted from the judges’ union--one of 31 unions whose general strike had led to Numeiri’s downfall--a petition asking Dahab to draft a constitution “based on national values and basic freedom” and to appoint a legal committee to review “hastily passed laws.” Analysts interpreted the petition as seeking a return to Western-style justice.

Numeiri, who is staying in Cairo, told the weekly Cairo newspaper Al Mussawar that he wants to return to Sudan “as an ordinary citizen.” He also said, “I do not believe my presence here to be a burden on relations between the two countries.”