The transitional government in Sudan have agreed to separate religion from the state, thereby putting an end to 30 years of Islamic rule in the Northeastern African country.
A quote from the document stated: “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.”
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and Abdel-Aziz al-Hilu, the rebel leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, signed a declaration in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa adopting the principle.
The pact comes less than a week after the government of Prime Minister Hamdok initiated a peace deal with rebel forces to put an end to the war in the Darfur region and in other regions ravaged by the insurgency.
The larger of the two factions in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North that consistently fought the Sudanese troops in the nation’s border states stated they will not call for a truce or sign any pact that doesn’t guarantee a secular society.
Sudan is coming from the doldrums of being a pariah state that began in 1989, 31 years ago after Omar Al-Bashir seized power in a military coup and implemented a hard-line interpretation of Islamic law that intended to make the North African country the “vanguard of the Islamic world.”