Jeffrey Gettleman and Waleed Arafat report in today’s NY Times:
NAIROBI, Kenya — A Sudanese woman who wore pants in public was fined the equivalent of $200 but spared a whipping Monday when a court found her guilty of violating Sudan’s decency laws.
The woman, Lubna Hussein, an outspoken journalist who had recently worked for the United Nations, faced up to 40 lashes in the case, which has generated a swarm of interest both inside and outside Sudan.
Mrs. Hussein vowed to appeal the sentence and even marched into the court in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, wearing the same pair of loose-fitting green slacks that she was arrested in.
Manal Awad Khogali, one of her lawyers, said the judge hearing the case called only police witnesses to testify and refused to allow Mrs. Hussein — who has pledged to use her trial to bring attention to women’s rights in Sudan — to defend herself.
“He didn’t give us a chance,” Mrs. Manal said.
The judge had threatened to jail her for one month if she did not pay the fine. But according to The A.P., Mrs. Hussein flatly said: “I would spend a month in jail. It is a chance to explore the conditions in jail.”
On Monday night, after refusing her lawyers’ advice to pay up, Mrs. Hussein was whisked off to jail, though her lawyers said that in the coming days a committee formed for her defense may pay the fine and free her.
Sudan is partly governed by Islamic law, which calls for women to dress modestly. But the law is vague. According to Article 152 of Sudan’s penal code, anyone “who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing” can be fined and lashed up to 40 times.
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I admire her for her courage and I feel blessed to be living in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteHi Amy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. Yes, Lubna Hussein is one very courageous woman!We are blessed in many ways to be living in the U.S., but we still have a long way to go before women gain full equality.