[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 32 (Tuesday, March 19, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H944]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 SUDAN

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to raise again the policies of the 
government of Sudan and its treatment of its people.
  Christians, Muslims, and Animists who do not submit to the Khartoum 
regime's control are targeted for destruction.
  In addition to its daily war against the Sudan's people, which 
includes destroying villages, killing the men and selling women and 
children into slavery, the government issues draconian punishments for 
crimes.
  One recent report details an 18-year-old illiterate Christian, Abok 
Alva Akok, who was raped but was sentenced to death because she could 
not produce the four male witnesses required under Muslim Sharia law.
  International outcry caused her sentence to be overturned, but the 
court then sentenced her to a ``rebuke'' of 75 lashes, carried out 
immediately. During the proceedings, she was denied legal 
representation.
  Mr. Speaker, the Khartoum regime not only denies justice to the 
Sudan's people, gives out harsh punishments, and permits active slave 
trade, but also is carrying out a brutal war to destroy the people of 
southern Sudan.
  Khartoum's brutal policies must be stopped.

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