( CNN ) -- `` Who are we ? '' It 's a question Northern Sudanese have been asking themselves for some time . Tucked away at the meeting point of Arab North Africa and the Horn , the people here have identified with both East and West . It 's a question Sudan 's President Omar al Bashir believes he 's given the definitive answer to . At one of his many public rallies he told supporters : `` We are an Arab , Muslim nation . Anyone who does n't like it can go . '' This was after those who did n't like it did exactly that : In 2011 , after a peace agreement brought to an end more than 21 years of civil war , the majority of Christians chose to secede and create their own country , aptly named South Sudan . But it has n't brought the two countries any closer to a lasting peace : Border squabbles and skirmishes over the division of oil wealth are still the norm . It did , though , give Islamists in northern Sudan a clearer goal for the `` cultural project '' launched in 1989 when they took power in a military coup that instated Islamic law and did away with any semblance of political plurality . Islamist theocracy . The project denounced the multi-ethnic , culturally-rich Sudan -- with its Sufi chants and Orthodox Easter festivals -- and reinforced -- as an Islamist theocracy with headscarves and `` public order '' courts . Effectively it created morality police . In the early years of Islamist rule , the public order courts were our bogeymen . Girls who were deemed inappropriately dressed -- by the arbitrary metric of whichever officer happened to be on duty at the time -- were carted off in the back of police pick-up trucks in their hundreds , taken to be at best humiliated , and at worst flogged . Even today , although the `` diktats '' , or rules on Islamic dress have loosened , the occasional street sweep serves as a reminder of what still lies in wait should your behavior be ruled `` un-Islamic . '' It was a public order court that sentenced Meriam Yahya Ibrahim to death for apostasy , for her refusal to renounce Christianity , a move that has left many of my Sudanese friends and family shocked . This comes as licenses to build new churches are routinely denied , permission for Christmas festivities routinely blocked and rights activists tell us an estimated 200 foreign nationals were thrown out of Sudan for `` Christian evangelizing . '' Ibrahim 's husband told me she was Christian when he met her and that he 's never met the men alleging she is their missing -- Muslim -- sister called Abrar . Her father , who Ibrahim claims was n't involved in her upbringing , has yet to speak , either in court or publicly . International outrage . And it 's these missing pieces of the puzzle that the government has clung to , trying to distract the growing domestic and international outrage . But it has n't escaped people 's notice that the press conference Ibrahim 's alleged brothers held was in a government hall , and that in a country where journalists are told not to broach certain topics , the statement by the man claiming to be her older brother was allowed to be freely published ; a statement announcing that the woman he claims as a sister must return to Islam or be killed `` as a glory to the faith . '' Perhaps it 's because the `` Ijma '' or consensus of the Islamic community , which is taken as a guide in Islamic jurisprudence , is not unified in the meting out of a death sentence for apostasy , although countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan do have the law on their books . Or maybe it 's because , even in a country that has found a way to live with the gunning down of protesters , the shrinking of freedom and allegations of government corruption and financial mismanagement , that seem to come almost daily , the death sentence of a mother-of-two for a crime that many here do n't think really counts , has allowed many to realize , at the very least , who we are not . READ MORE : Only court can release death row Christian . READ MORE : Sudanese woman gives birth on death row .
After decades of civil war , the majority Christian South of Sudan chose to secede . Border squabbles and skirmishes over the division of oil wealth are still the norm . Laws on Islamic terrorism have loosened -- but there is the occasional clean sweep . The death penalty for terrorism has left many Sudanese shocked .