The passage of a United Nations resolution reclassifying The Sudan as a country without significant human rights abuses will undermine a fragile peace process and the credibility of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, according to Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, who recently wrote to the United States representative at the United Nations.

Human rights violations are “an ongoing and significant problem in Sudan and the need for credible human rights monitoring has not diminished,” Bishop Griswold said.

Bishop Griswold quoted Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has said that “there is perhaps no greater tragedy on the face of the earth than in Sudan.”

In recent months, the central government based in Khartoum has offered a number of concessions, including perhaps most significantly a guarantee that Sharia, or Islamic religious law, would apply only to Muslims in the future.