"I will not pay the money, and I will go to prison."
Lubna Hussein, a former journalist and U.N. press officer, leaves the court after her trial in Sudan's capital Khartoum, September 7, 2009.
REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
Sudanese woman fined for wearing trousers
07 Sep 2009 13:48:10 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Sudanese woman found guilty of indecency
* spared lashes, but fined
(Refiles to make clear Sudanese pounds, paragraph 2; Adds quote from woman, details, protest)
By Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM, Sept 7 (Reuters) - A Sudanese woman was found guilty of indecency and fined on Monday for wearing trousers in a case that has attracted worldwide attention, but she will be spared lashes, an official who attended the trial said.
The woman, Lubna Hussein, was arrested at a party in July with 12 other women and had faced the possibility of 40 lashes for wearing trousers deemed indecent. The court ordered her to pay a fine of Sudanese 500 pounds ($209) or face a month in jail.
Hussein's case was seen as a test of Sudan's Islamic decency regulations, which many women activists say are vague and give individual police officers undue latitude to determine what is acceptable clothing for women.
A former reporter who was working for the United Nations at the time of her arrest, Hussein has publicised her case, posing in loose trousers for photos and calling for media support.
Reached by telephone after the verdict, Hussein said she would refuse to pay the fine:
"I will not pay the money, and I will go to prison."
Defence lawyer Nabil Adib Abdalla has previously said the law on indecent dress was so wide it contravened Hussein's right to a fair trial.
"She was found guilty, but we know she is not guilty ... This is a clear violation of the constitution, of women's rights, and the peace agreement," said Yasser Arman, a government official who attended the trial and is also a senior member of the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
Ten of the other women arrested with Hussein have pleaded guilty and have been whipped, Hussein previously said.
PROTESTS AT COURT
Indecency cases are not uncommon in Sudan, where there is a large cultural gap between the mostly Muslim and Arab-oriented north and the mainly Christian south. The cases prompted scores of women to gather near the court ahead of the verdict to lend support to Hussein.
Hussein argued her clothes, a pair of green slacks that she also wore to her first court appearance, were respectable and that she did not break the law.
"Lubna has given us a chance. She is very brave. Thousands of girls have been beaten since the 1990s, but Lubna is the first one not to keep silent," protester Sawsan Hassan el-Showaya told Reuters before the verdict.
But scuffles erupted at the protest before the court session even began between the women and Islamists, who shouted religious slogans and denounced Hussein and her supporters as prostitutes and demanded a harsh punishment for Hussein.
Riot police quickly cleared the scene, beating some protesters with batons. Around 40 women protesters were detained.
Hussein has said she resigned from her U.N. job to give up any legal immunity so she could continue with the case, prove her innocence and challenge the decency law.
U.N. officials have said the United Nations told Sudan that Hussein was immune from legal proceedings as she was a U.N. employee at the time of her arrest. But the case was allowed to proceed after Sudan's foreign ministry advised the court that Hussein was not immune. (Reporting by Andrew Heavens and Khalid Abdel Aziz; Writing by Cynthia Johnston)
Lubna Hussein, who was arrested July 3 for wearing pants and is now standing trial, openly defied the court by wearing the very same outfit to trial that she was arrested for, AFP reports.
From the Associated Press:
A Sudanese female journalist facing 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public in violation of the country's strict Islamic laws told a packed Khartoum courtroom Wednesday she is resigning from a U.N. job that grants her immunity so she can challenge the law on women's public dress code.
Lubna Hussein was among 13 women arrested July 3 in a raid by members of the public order police force on a popular Khartoum cafe for wearing trousers, considered indecent by the strict interpretation of Islamic law adopted by Sudan's Islamic regime. All but three of the women were flogged at a police station two days later.
But Hussein and two other women decided they wanted to go to trial and Hussein invited human rights workers, western diplomats and fellow journalists to Wednesday's hearing.
Some of her women friends showed up in court Wednesday wearing trousers in a show of support.
"This is not a case about me wearing pants," said Hussein, who works in the media department of the U.N. Mission in Sudan and contributes opinion pieces to a left-leaning Khartoum newspaper.
"This is a case about annulling the article that addresses women's dress code, under the title of indecent acts. This is my battle. This article is against the constitution and even against Islamic law itself," she said after the hearing.
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Judge Mudathir Rashid adjourned the hearing until Aug. 4 to give Hussein time to quit her job.
Hussein said she would immediately quit and thanked the U.N. for intervening to spare her possible punishment.
She said the U.N. mission was trying to stand by her, invoking a clause in an agreement between the Sudanese government and the world body's representatives in Sudan that obliges authorities to ask permission before starting legal proceedings against a member of its staff.
Hussein's defense lawyer, Nabil Adeeb, said the U.N. wanted to protect its staff, but Hussein wanted her trial to proceed.
"We have contradicting interests," he said. Hussein can face at least 40 lashes, according to Adeeb.
Islamic Sharia law has been strictly implemented in Sudan since an army coup led by President Omar al-Bashir seized power in 1989, toppling an elected but ineffective government. Activists and lawyers say the implementation of the law is arbitrary.
Public order cases usually involve quick summary trials with sentences carried out shortly afterward, as was the case with the 10 of the 13 women arrested earlier this month. They were flogged and fined 250 Sudanese pounds, or about $120.
Women in the mostly Arabized and Muslim northern Sudan, particularly in the capital Khartoum, dress in traditional outfits that include a shawl over their head and shoulder. Western dress is uncommon.
Still, the raid on a Khartoum cafe popular with journalists and foreigners was unusual.
>___
Associated Press reporter Sarah El Deeb conributed to this report from Cairo, Egypt.
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