NEWS JUNKIE POST
Sep 7, 2009 at 11:17 amSudan: Woman Journalist Jailed For Wearing Trousers
Sudanese woman journalist Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein was sent to jail after she refused to pay a 500 Sudanese pounds ( 200 US dollars) fine imposed by a court on Monday for wearing trousers, deemed “indecent” by Sudanese Islamic law. She was taken to the prison for women in Omdurman.
According to Sudanese law she could have been sentenced to 40 lashes for “indecency” under Islamic principle. Hussein was arrested with 12 other women wearing trousers in a Khartoum restaurant in July. Ten of the women arrested were each given 10 lashes. However, Hussein decided to challenge the charge and started a public campaign to change the law.
Monday, a Khartoum court spared Hussein a whipping, but instead fined her 200 dollars. Hussein walked out of court in Khartoum, today, holding a sign saying “Know your rights and avoid discrimination”. The press was barred from the court, but the journalist made this short statement before she was taken to jail: “I won’t pay, I would rather go to prison.” In her determination to keep fighting, Hussein refused to follow her lawyer’s advice to pay the fine.
Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein writes for the left leaning Al-Sahafa newspaper, and she also works for the United Nations mission in Sudan. She is the leading voice for women-rights in Sudan, it seems pretty obvious that she was targeted by the authorities for this very reason.
You can find out more about Lubna, a courageous journalist fighting for human rights, by going to her Facebook page.
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Wait, didn’t she USED to work for the United Nations? I’m pretty sure I read another article that said she had recently stopped working, and that’s part of the reason she was arrested (working for the United Nations gave her immunity from being charged like this).
I read this story in the world news section in a local newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago. The level of ancient madness that women are subjected to in Sudan is tremendously unsettling. The 21st Century cannot accommodate this uncivilised behaviour of wanting to senselessly punish women for such trivial incidents. There was clearly nothing indecent with the Sudanese woman’s attire. The role of law enforcement in any cultured society is expected to be one of protecting and serving its citizens rather than frustrating, terrorising and harassing them. A society of men who cannot empathise with their female population and subordinate their mothers, daughters and wives is indeed barbaric and underdeveloped. This requires immediate and significant social reform.