Muslim is spared flogging
A WOMAN caught wearing trousers in public has escaped 40 lashes for violating “public decency” but has been jailed for a month.
Journalist Lubna Hussein was among 13 women arrested in a raid by police in Sudan.
Ten of the women admitted the charge and were fined and flogged two days later. Muslim Ms Hussein and two others decided to go on trial in the fundamentalist Islamic country.
Ms Hussein works for the United Nations and would have received immunity from prosecution.
But she chose to resign from her job to fight the case in Khartoum.
Before the trial police rounded up dozens of female demonstrators, many of them wearing trousers, outside the courtroom.
Ms Hussein, who was arrested on July 3, was also fined £120 by the judge. She has vowed not to pay
the fine. “I won’t pay, as a matter of principle,” she said.
The human-rights group Amnesty International called on Sudan to withdraw the charges against her and repeal the law which justifies “abhorrent” penalties.