Bashir: Sudan North adopted Sharia (guardian)

Omar al-Bashir has been accused of deepening international isolation of the Sudan. Photo: Mohamed Nureldin Abdullah/Reuters

Omar al-Bashir, Sudanese President, said that the country would adopt an Islamic constitution if South split away from the month next referendum, in a speech today in which he also defended police shoot a woman being whipped.

"If South Sudan secedes, we'll modify the constitution and at that time, no there is no time to talk about diversity of culture and ethnicity"Bashir said partisan parade in the eastern town of Gedaref.""

He said: "Islam and Sharia [Islamic law] will be the main source of the constitution, Islam religion official and Arabic, the language ';

The main part of the southern Sudan official criticized attitude Bashir, saying that it would encourage discrimination against minorities in the mainly Muslim north and deepen the international isolation of the country.

The referendum in southern Sudan, where most follow Aboriginal beliefs and Christianity in whether it must declare independence is scheduled to start on January 9.

The vote was promised in 2005 peace agreement ended in a civil war between North and South and make a provisional constitution limiting Sharia in the North and recognized "cultural and social diversity of the Sudanese people.

Analysts expect most people to choose independence in the survey, due to last for a week. Yasser Arman, people's Liberation Movement (SPLM), Sudan said instructions Bashir to encourage law enforcement in the North. "This type of speech is preparing the ground for a police state." North, alone or with the South, is a place very various. »

Arman says radical position of Northern people led to the separation. "If she [North] continues like this will encourage other areas such as Darfur, the Nuba mountains and Eastern Sudan walk," he added, referring to areas on the periphery of the North of Sudan. "It will also result in Sudan with the worst of relations with the outside world."

The leaders of the South said that they are worried about how hundreds of thousands of people living in the North could be processed after a separation.

Arman, main challenger Bashir in the presidential elections in April, is the northern part of the SPLM. He said that his group would form a separate within the northern opposition party if the South seceded.

Bashir has also defended the police showed how tie woman sequences which appeared on YouTube. "If it is set in accordance with the Sharia law he did y no investigation.". Why some people are ashamed? It is the Sharia, "he said."

Main program member Nafie Ali Nafie said Thursday that efforts to keep the country United had failed in the first recognition of the elite North South would probably secession.

Flogging conducted under Islamic law is almost daily punishment in northern Sudan, for crimes, including alcohol and adultery.