Joborona, Sudan - "Forty-five lashes for being drunk," the man said bitterly, raising his shirt to show crisscrossed wounds on his stomach, some still red and tender.
Marko Mayoren, 50, had been released a day earlier after a night in jail and a brief trial that convicted him of breaking Islamic law by drinking alcohol.
Having just ended a 21-year civil war that divided Muslims and Christians, Sudan has a new government and new interim constitution guaranteeing religious freedom. But for Mayoren, the new deal so far exists largely on paper.
Others report fewer acts of harassment since the new constitution took effect in July, such as less stringent application of the rules on alcohol and women's dress.
But it's still not easy for the tiny Christian minority in the capital, Khartoum.
Mayoren said he was taken to the Muslim Court of Conduct and whipped, then ordered to pay a 5,000 dinar fine (about $20)--"Plus 50 dinars [20 cents] for the ink they used to write the report," he said.
Mayoren's comrades swapped nearly identical stories as they sat on stools and dipped a wooden bowl into a bucket of a fermented orange drink called, for reasons unknown, "Internet."
Nation 70% Muslim
These refugees are from the war-ravaged south, where Christianity and traditional African faiths are the main religions. About 70 percent of the nation's population is Muslim, and Christians make up about 5 percent.
Now 400 to 800 miles from home, the refugees sat at an improvised outdoor bar in Joborona, one of several camps for about 2 million southerners that have sprung up around Khartoum over the past two decades.
The men know the law forbids alcohol; they just don't think it should apply to Christians.
They're right, says Ghazi Suleiman, a Muslim lawyer and parliament member. He notes that the constitution says "Sudan is a diversified nation" and guarantees respect for all practices, traditions and religions.
But the capital is still an Islamic city, where most women wrap head and body in flowing robes, all shops and the one Western-style mall close for Friday prayers, and a huge sign in English on the airport highway offers this verse from the Koran, the Muslim holy book: "If anyone desires a religion other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him."
At a five-star hotel, foreign men and women can mingle by the pool, but not Sudanese women; they have to use a small women-only pool indoors.
The new constitution has given Christians a slight sense of reprieve. Arrests such as Mayoren's seem to have decreased, and some say police have stopped boarding buses to sniff southerners for alcohol.
Christian women have been quick to discard scarves and long-sleeved garb, though they still report women being roughed up when alone and cornered by a cop.
Law enforcement agencies have been ordered not to harass non-Muslims and not to detain drinkers unless they are disturbing the peace.
Jacqueline Khamis, a 23-year-old Christian who lives in Joborona, has short, uncovered hair, wears a T-shirt and long skirt. She says "there's been a great change" since the government and southern rebels signed a peace deal in January.
Until peace was signed, "almost every girl I know has been physically harassed for the way she is dressed," Khamis said.
Compliance with the new rules seems sketchy, though. In August, police raided a house party and sent the expatriates and UN-employed Sudanese home but checked the others for boozy breath, revealing clothes and suggestive photos on their cell phones. Suspected offenders were detained.
Harassment returns Suleiman said such incidents decreased considerably after the constitution was signed, but old habits of harassment returned following the death of rebel chief John Garang in a plane crash in July, three weeks after he was sworn in as vice president.
The Khartoum provincial government will set up a committee to enforce Christian rights in the capital, Suleiman said, and the city "shall be under two systems of law so we can prevent these abuses."
Khamis is less optimistic about her future under the Arabs, as Muslim northerners are known.
"I don't think we'll be able to live openly as Christians for a long time," she said . "Even if the Arabs say, `feel free,' they'll catch you in a corner and do what they want to you."