{"id":49010,"date":"2017-08-09T12:35:34","date_gmt":"2017-08-09T10:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/site\/?p=49010"},"modified":"2017-08-09T13:45:20","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T11:45:20","slug":"%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d9%83%d9%88%d9%85%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b3%d9%88%d8%af%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%aa%d9%87%d8%af%d9%85-%d9%83%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%b3%d8%a9-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%85%d8%af%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d9%83%d9%88%d9%85%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b3%d9%88%d8%af%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%aa%d9%87%d8%af%d9%85-%d9%83%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%b3%d8%a9-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%85%d8%af%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudan demolishes another church, but MPs block school on Sundays"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;\">The Sudanese government demolished another church on last Wednesday, the day after members of the Khartoum State Parliament rejected an order by the Minister of Education for all Christian schools in the capital to open on a Sunday.<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;\">The Baptist Church in Omdurman, across the Nile, just west from the capital Khartoum, was on the list of 27 churches designated for destruction last year by the Sudanese government, which claims they were in violation of the designated purposes of the land they were built on.<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;\">The Baptist Church in Omdurman, which was demolished last week. PICTURE: Open Doors International.<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;\">The EU Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, J\u00e1n Fige\u013e, raised this issue in March during a visit to Sudan and was told some of the demolitions had been temporarily stopped.<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;\">However, since then at least two more churches have been destroyed and a church worker killed when he tried to intervene.<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;\">In May, the Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) wrote an open letter to the Sudanese government, detailing the \u201chard conditions\u201d they have faced in recent years.<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;\">In October 2015, an Evangelical church was demolished also in Omdurman at only 72 hours\u2019 notice.<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;\">Meanwhile, MPs last Tuesday rejected Minister of Education Farah Mustafa\u2019s order that all Christian schools in Khartoum should open on Sundays.<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;\">Mr Mustafa last week issued a statement asking Christian-run schools to adhere to the country\u2019s weekend days of Friday and Saturday, obliging them to treat Sundays as a work day, as Radio Tamuzuj reported.<\/span><\/h2>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: 'andale mono', times;\">Churches complained, arguing that Sunday had been a day off for church schools since their founding in Sudan. \u201cThe government\u2019s decision to abolish Sundays for Christian schools is discrimination against Christians in Sudan,\u201d an unnamed Sudanese church leader said.<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Sudanese government demolished another church on last Wednesday, the day after members of the Khartoum State Parliament rejected an order by the Minister of Education for all Christian schools in the capital to open on a Sunday. The Baptist Church in Omdurman, across the Nile, just west from the capital Khartoum, was on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":49012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,74],"tags":[9098,3638,9096,9097,5109,4818,9099,9094,2756,9095],"class_list":["post-49010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-74","tag-block","tag-church","tag-demolishes","tag-mps","tag-school","tag-sudan","tag-sundays","tag-9094","tag-2756","tag-9095"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49010"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49010"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49014,"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49010\/revisions\/49014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/copticocc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}