Christian sources in Sudan have reported that Sudan's Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments has threatened to arrest church leaders if they carry out evangelistic activities and do not comply with an order for churches to provide their names and contact information.

The warning in a letter to church leaders of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church arrived a few days after Sudan President Omar al-Bashir told cheering crowds on Jan. 3 that, following the secession of largely non-Islamic South Sudan last July, the country's constitution will be more deeply entrenched in sharia (Islamic) law.

"We will take legal procedures against pastors who are involved in preaching or evangelistic activities," Hamid Yousif Adam, undersecretary of the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment, wrote to the church leaders. "We have all legal rights to take them to court."

Christians in Khartoum increasingly fear arrests by militias loyal to the Islamic government, the sources said.

Security agencies in Khartoum also have ordered local Christians not to organize Bible exhibitions, as some churches have done annually, the sources said.

The pressures on Christians come as war in Sudan's South Kordofan state reportedly has led leaders there and in North Kordofan to incite hatred against Christians, with officials in both states calling for holy war against the predominantly Christian Nuba people.