Tuesday, July 14th 2009 at 16:20 PM
40 lashes for wearing trousers
Just when you think life can't get any crazier, it does.
It appears that a high profile Sudanese journalist faces receiving 40 lashes after wearing "indecent" clothing. With another 10 women having already faced a similar punishment.
Can you guess what she was wearing? ...trousers.
Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who writes for the left-wing Al-Sahafa newspaper and works for the media department of the United Nations Mission in Sudan, was arrested in Khartoum last week and charged with dressing indecently.
Ms Hussein said she was at a restaurant on July 3 when police came in and ordered women wearing trousers to follow them to the police station.
She said:
They took away me and 12 other young women, including southerners
referring to women from Sudan's animist and Christian south where the Muslim north's Islamic or sharia law does not apply.
Followed by,
Two days later, 10 of them were summoned to the police station in downtown Khartoum and given 10 lashes each
If convicted, they face a mandatory 40 lashes. Ms Hussein said she did not know when her case would be heard.
"I want people to know what happened," she said.
Unlike some countries in the region, particularly in the Gulf, women have a prominent place in Sudanese public life. Nevertheless, human rights organisations say that some laws discriminate against women.
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