فضية لبنى فى صحف العالم من سيدنى الى سياتل (تتورطون)

Quote: Sudanese woman risks flogging over 'indecent' trousers Tristan McConnell in Nairobi Sudanese journalist Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein (Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images) Sudanese journalist Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein says she will give up her immunity as a UN worker A woman journalist is taking on the feared Sudanese morality police to challenge the country’s draconian laws on public dress, insisting on being tried for the crime of wearing trousers in public and risking a punishment of 40 lashes. Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein was at a private party in a restaurant in an upmarket district of Khartoum on July 3 when a group of public order policemen — given the task of enforcing strict Islamic rectitude — burst in. They detained her and a dozen other women for wearing trousers, considered indecent according to the law. Ten of those arrested, including women from the Christian south of the country, were summoned to a police station two days later and were each flogged ten times, according to Ms Hussein. She said that she avoided summary punishment by calling a lawyer but was ordered to appear before a judge yesterday. Ms Hussein, who is also a public information officer for the United Nations Mission in Sudan, turned up to court yesterday expecting to be fined up to 250 Sudanese pounds (£64) and sentenced to 40 lashes. Instead, she was told that her status as a UN employee granted her immunity from the flogging. She promptly quit and demanded that the case carry on. Related Links * One year on: how Gillian Gibbons learnt her lesson * Aid switch to help fragile countries “I wish to resign from the UN. I wish this court case to continue,” she told Judge Mudathir Rashid and a packed courtroom. The judge adjourned the case until Tuesday. A spokesperson for the UN mission refused to comment on Ms Hussein’s case, calling it “a personal issue”. However, Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, referred to the case at a New York press conference, saying he was “deeply concerned” and denouncing flogging as a violation of human rights. “The UN will take every effort to ensure that the rights of its staff members are protected,” he said. At the time of her arrest Ms Hussein was wearing long, loose dark green trousers, a colourful thigh-length shirt and a patterned green hijab or Islamic headscarf. She wore the same outfit to her court appearance yesterday. Apparently determined to extract maximum publicity, Ms Hussein said that she had invited 500 supporters and journalists to the trial, to raise awareness of “dozens, hundreds, and maybe thousands flogged in public order courts because of their dress, day after day, month after month, and year after year”. Nabil Adib Abdullah, her defence lawyer, told reporters: “First of all she wants to show she is innocent, and using her immunity will not prove that. Second, she wants to fight the law.” He called her trial a test case for Sudan. In a posting on her Facebook page Ms Hussein said: “The problem lies in Clause 152 of the criminal law, which sentences \ to 40 lashes or a fine, or both, for improper dress, without stipulating what exactly that is.” After the hearing she said that her aim was to have that clause annulled. “This is my battle. This article is against the constitution and even against Islamic law.” Dozens of women protested outside the court waving placards saying “a woman is not for flogging” and “lashing people is against human rights”. Even though Ms Hussein is casting her case as a fight for women’s rights the Sudanese authorities have other reasons to persecute her. She writes a regular column called “Men Talk” in the left-wing al-Sahafa newspaper, founded by her late husband, in which she is frequently critical of the hardline Islamist regime of President Bashir. Mr Bashir, who celebrated two decades in power on June 30, seized power in a bloodless coup in 1989 and has ruled Africa’s largest country with an iron fist ever since. Mohamed Khaled, of the Arab Network for Human Rights, told The Times: “Lubna’s case is not about Sharia, it is a political case. She has criticised the Government and the extremists and Islamists who dominate the country.”