After more than 30 years of imposing Islamic law on all citizens, Sudan has vowed to repeal those laws which violate human rights. According to a report by BBC News on 12 July 2020, Justice Minister Nasredeen Abdulbari stated that the new government will drop, among other laws, the apostasy law and the law that allows public flogging. Yonas Dembele, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, comments: "Sudan is going through enormous changes since the ousting of former dictator Omar al-Bashir. The country"s transitional government is headed by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok who, prior to taking up his current post, was Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. With high levels of‚  unemployment and inflation creating social unrest in the country, the government has been making a major effort to bring Sudan back into a cordial relationship with the Western world so that sanctions can be lifted. As a country that has been in the spotlight for numerous violations of human rights, the new administration wants to prove to the world that this time the situation is different and the country is heading in a positive direction. These proposed changes in law are part of a wider reform that the country is believed to be undergoing." Yonas Dembele adds: "Sudan is a very conservative nation with a variety of influential groups exerting pressure on the transitional government. The proposed changes will doubtless please the international community. However, how domestic political and ultra-conservative (and some radical) Islamic groups react, remains to be seen. What is clear for Christians and churches in the country is that the proposed legal reforms are definitely a step in the right direction.‚  The rising optimism has led some analysts‚  to suggest that "˜Sudan"s government calls itself transitional, but what it is attempting is transformational" (Bloomberg Quint, 20 July 2020). According to these analysts, the transitional government would be greatly encouraged by having Sudan removed from the US State Department"s list of countries that sponsor terrorism."