CAIRO: At least 13 Sudanese women received public lashes for wearing tight clothes last Friday, local Sudanese police confirmed. The plead guilty to the charges and were lashed immediately, but another case is drawing the attention of the world. That woman, Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, is fighting against the charges that she wore “tight” clothes, or pants, and is currently awaiting her final sentence. Al-Hussein was originally prosecuted and tried at the general discipline court where she was accused of “senstational dressing up,” the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reported on Wednesday. According to the freedom advocacy organization, the country's discipline police considered al-Hussein's, who is an editor at Ajras al Horreya, clothes as “a threat to the values and virtues of the Sudanese society.” The penalty for such crimes is 40 lashes in public as per Sudan's penal code. ANHRI reported that the Sudanese authorities are “continuing further to persecute reporters and oppress all voices defending freedom of expression.” ANHRI has called on the Sudanese government to abolish or change the public discipline law, one of the most oppressive and discriminating laws against women as it violates basic individual freedoms. One journalist, Amal Habbani, who writes the column “Tiny Issues” in the same newspaper, is now under threat after she wrote an article on July 12 supporting her colleague. She was questioned by the media and publications prosecution on July 20 based on an article that some are arguind defames the country. The discipline police are demanding she pay a fine of 10 million Sudanese pounds, or $400,000. Habbani wrote in the article titled “Lubna … A Case Of Subduing a Woman’s Body,†that al-Hussein’s case is not at all concerned with dress, but rather a political issue that aims to intimidate and terrorize government opponents with the general discipline law. Female Sudanese activists demonstrated in support for Lubna on Sunday in front of Ajrass Al Horreya where they demanded the charges be dropped. Many activists in Sudan charge that the country's security forces often break into private parties and congregations in order to crack down on what they call “indecent” behavior. Thousands of Sudanese women have been whipped, imprisoned and fined under the “sensational dressing†law. “Most interesting is that the police officer investigating the defendants (all women) asks each to lift her arms up and turn around one complete turn. After taking close and thorough looks across her entire body, front and rear, he decides whether her clothes are seductive or not!” the ANHRI lambasted the Sudanese authorities in a statement. “Then the defendants are judged in the general discipline court facing verdicts of whipping or imprisonment or fining.” BM
