[fund] promotion and application of religious laws

Des mesures urgentes peuvent être prises pour réparer quelques inégalités en matière d’héritage. Il ne s’agit pas de se mettre en contradiction avec la religion, mais de se conformer à des principes édictés par l’Islam et qui ont permis à nos voisins de s’adapter à la réalité socioéconomique.

Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, said the country would adopt an Islamic constitution if the south split away in next month's referendum, in a speech today in which he also defended police filming a woman being flogged. "If south Sudan secedes, we will change the constitution and at that time there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture and ethnicity," Bashir told supporters at a rally in the eastern city of Gedaref. "Sharia [Islamic law] and Islam will be the main source for the constitution, Islam the official religion and Arabic the official language," he said.

Sudan's judiciary has launched an investigation into the public flogging of a woman after footage of her being whipped by laughing policemen was posted to the internet.The YouTube video shows an unidentified woman in a long black dress and a headscarf being ordered to sit down in a parking lot (Warning: Video contains graphic images of violence some may find disturbing).A uniformed policeman proceeds to whip her all over her body as she screams in pain. A second officer laughs when he realises he is being filmed, before joining in the punishment, which lasts a minute and a half.

Harmful traditional practices violating women’s rights, including honour killings, child marriage and giving away girls to settle disputes, are pervasive in Afghanistan, says a United Nations report released today that calls on the Government to implement a new law aimed at ending the scourge. Based on research and interviews in nearly all 34 provinces with women, men, Government authorities, religious leaders and community groups, the human rights unit of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) found that the practices occur among all ethnic groups, in rural and urban areas, and that the most harmful among them violate not only Afghan law but also Islamic Sharia law.