Khartoum: Sudan's president warned people caught selling, drinking or brewing alcohol would be lashed, despite complaints from rights groups, as he addressed an election rally outside Khartoum on Thursday.
"Anybody who drinks alcohol, we lash them. Anybody who makes alcohol, we lash them. Anybody who sells alcohol, we lash them. I don't care about the UN or human rights organisations," Omar Hassan Al Bashir said in a speech broadcast on Sudan's Blue Nile television.
Al Bashir, a powerful public speaker who regularly peppers his rallies with broad nationalistic and Islamic appeals, spoke in Omdowan, a village just east of the capital, known as a religious centre.
The president, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court to face charges of war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region, has thrown himself into a nationwide campaign tour ahead of elections due to start next month.
Alcohol is banned in north Sudan and whipping is a common punishment for anyone caught drinking, brewing or selling it.
Rights groups have complained about lashing sentences handed out against women caught brewing alcohol in Khartoum, many of them from the non-Muslim south.
Sudan's brand of Islamic law has come under the international spotlight in recent years. A British teacher was jailed after letting her class name a teddy bear Mohammad in 2007 and a Sudanese journalist was imprisoned in September after being convicted of indecency for wearing trousers. Both women had faced a maximum sentence of flogging.
Nigerian football star Stephen Worgu last year said he had been sentenced to 40 lashes after being convicted of drunk driving in Khartoum. Worgu, who plays for Omdurman club Al Merreikh, said he was innocent.
