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RELEASE.
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Women Living Under Muslim Laws
Update: Lubna Hussein Trial
Postponed & Fine Paid Against Hussein's Will
7/09/2009:
Lubna Hussein had been released after a day in prison after the government
backed Journalists Union paid her fine. They did so without her consent. It is
believed the government hopes that by closing this case, the pressure to repeal
the discriminatory laws with die down. The sentence of flogging was dropped in
the case of Lubna Hussein who was charged under article 152 (Indecent and
Immoral Acts) of the 1991 Sudanese Penal Code for wearing trousers in a public
place. However, the guilty verdict has not been overturned and she had to
choose between paying a fine of 500 Sudanese pounds or facing one month in
jail. On Monday evening, Lubna Hussein was taken to jail to begin her sentence.
Ms. Hussein did not want to lend any legitimacy to the verdict by paying the fine,
and had intended to appeal the guilty verdict in both the Court of Appeal and
the Constitutional Court. Lubna Hussein had previously pointed out that this
charge falls under ‘immoral’ or ‘indecent behaviour’, a charge which will
remain on her record and that of the other women arrested. Although she she
will not be flogged, this offence on her record is associated with prostitution
and other 'immoral' behaviour.
BACKGROUND
Please join WLUML and its allies in applauding Lubna Ahmad Hussein’s
courageous stance in defence of women’s human rights, and in demanding that
article 152 be repealed because it is in violation of fundamental human rights
as enshrined in international law, as well as being in breach of The Bill of
Rights in the Sudanese Interim Constitution 2005.
Lubna Ahmad Hussein and 12 other women were arrested in Khartoum on July 3, 2009, when police forces stormed the restaurant and arrested women diners for wearing trousers. The women, some of whom come from Southern Sudan, were charged under article 152 (Indecent and Immoral Acts) of the 1991 Penal Code. Ten of the women pleaded guilty and have already received punishments of 10 lashes each (two of them under the age of 16), and charges were brought against three others, including Hussein. These actions of the ‘public order police’ (similar to the religious police in Saudi Arabia) systematically violate the human rights of Sudanese women.
Hussein brought the issue to the attention of the public, and distributed 500 invitations to journalists and friends to court proceedings on Wednesday 29 July, having explained in an interview with Al-Arabiyya TV, that she had given out the invitations because otherwise no one would believe that she was to be flogged for wearing ordinary clothes: "I wanted the punishment to be executed in the presence of observers, so that they see for themselves why I was being flogged."
As Lubna Ahmad Hussein works for the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), the judge said at the hearing on 29 July that she had the choice either to accept immunity from the UN or to waive that and go on with the trial. Hussein said that she will resign from UNMIS so she will be dealt with as a Sudanese citizen. Hussein has chosen to use her particular case to challenge the constitutionality of the law and to highlight the growing number of cases of floggings of girls and women in Sudan.
Over the past 20 years Sudanese women- regardless of their race, religion, age or background- have suffered degrading treatment and humiliation under the public order code of 1996, which changed in 2009 to The Society Safety Code. The discriminatory laws against women embedded in Sudanese legislation contradict the declared government commitment to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed on 9 January 2005, and to the National Interim Constitution. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – which Sudan acceded in 1986 – prohibits torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment such as flogging and protects women's rights to be free from discrimination based on sex.
The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, signed by Sudan on 30 June 2008, pledged to reform existing discriminatory laws and practices in order to promote and protect the rights of women. Furthermore, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Sudan in 1979, clearly states that: ‘States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child’s parents, legal guardians, or family members.’
Imposed dress-codes upon women, whether enforced by legal frameworks or non-state actors, are not only about clothing. Dress-codes speak to an underlying desire to control women’s bodies and autonomy, examples of which can be seen across regions and cultures. We urge your immediate attention to this extreme manifestation of controlling women’s bodies and autonomy through their clothing.
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The Equal Rights Trust is an
independent international organisation whose purpose is to combat
discrimination and promote equality as a fundamental human right and a basic
principle of social justice. http://www.equalrightstrust.org/about-ert/index.htm
Equal Rights Trust to Sudan also
publicized by Human Rights Without Frontiers - HRWF.
Direct Link to Full 10-Page Equal
Rights Trust Letter to Sudan:
LUBNA HUSSEIN CASE AND ARTICLE 152
OF THE SUDAN CRIMINAL ACT (1991)
Equal Rights Trust - ERT - is
concerned about the existence and discriminatory application by Sudanese courts
of Article 152 of the 1991 Criminal Act, and urges you to repeal this
provision. We also urge you to carry out a review of Sudan's legislation to
ensure that it gives effect to the principle of non-discrimination as enshrined
in binding international treaties to which Sudan is a State Party and in
Sudan's constitution.
This letter was prompted by the
conviction on 7 September 2009 of Ms. Lubna Hussein under the above-mentioned
Article. While noting the release of Ms. Hussein following the payment of her
fine by the Sudanese Journalists Union, ERT remains deeply concerned about the
application of Article 152 in this case and in particular the issues that it
raises in respect to the rights of women and the right to freedom from
discrimination in Sudan.
Article 152 of the 1991 Sudan
Criminal Act provides:
(1) Whoever commits in public
places, an act, or conducts himself in an indecent manner, or a manner contrary
to public morality, or wears an indecent or immoral dress, which causes
annoyance to public feelings, shall be punished, with whipping not exceeding
forty lashes, or a fine or both.
(2) The act shall be deemed contrary
to public morality, if it is so considered in the religion of the doer, or the
custom of the country where the act occurs
Discrimination on the Ground of
Gender
While it is gender neutral on its
face, Article 152 has reportedly been applied in a manner that discriminates
against women.
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