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A.C.N - Aid to the Church in Need Italian Office |
Religious Freedom in
the Majority Islamic Countries |
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Senegal Population:
9,404,000
Senegal, for many years a French colony, achieved full independence in 1960. In 1984, conflict began with the Diola tribe of the Casamance region, who were struggling for secession and for the creation of an autonomous state. When Jacques Diouf, formerly Prime Minister in 1970, won the elections in 1988 there were serious clashes, followed by tensions with Mauritania and fighting that resulted in over 400 deaths. The re-election of Diouf in 1993 was again contested and in 1995, in order to pacify the situation, a new government was appointed including also the former opposition party. The country has an Islamic majority, with the exception of the Casamance region which lies to the south of Gambia. Nonetheless it appears to maintain a certain freedom of worship. Senegal has always made efforts to maintain the secular character of its own institutions. Islamism is always seen as an aspect of national identity and stability in the north of the country, while in the south secessionist groups consider it to represent the central power and the result of colonisation by the tribes of the north. Islam here is of an ethnic type, in which each tribe lives according to its own traditions, with some exceptions in the case of the confraternities. A large colony of Syro-Lebanese, who are in the main Shiites, are financially backing the Islamist movement, but the demand for an Islamic state is coming only from a small number of extremists. The points of disagreement and conflict between the State and the Islamic organisations were the adoption of the Family Code in 1972 - seen as contrary to the Sharia - and the integration of Islamic religious education into the public education system. |
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