 A Quran |
Facebook is one of the top social networking sites, and probably sees millions of invitations posted each day, but one put up by a journalist in the Sudan probably is unique: It invites her friends and the public to her flogging.
According to a report today from the Middle East Media Research Institute, Lubna Ahmad Hussein posted the invitation to her friends and supporters to “stir up a scandal around her case.”
As WND reported just days ago, she was among the women – including many Christians – arrested and flogged for wearing trousers.
The MEMRI report said Hussein hopes the case “will shed light on Clause 152 of Sudan’s 1991 criminal law.”
“This is not a matter of a personal attack against me as a journalist, nor of preserving my personal dignity. Far from it … The issue has taken on a different character, [and I call] on the public to be [my] witness and [to judge for themselves whether this incident] is a disgrace for me or for the public order police. You will decide after hearing the charges and the prosecution witnesses, rather than [only] my side of the story,” MEMRI reported the posting said.
A variety of Arabic-language reports documented the invitation.
“My case is the same as that of 10 young women flogged that day, as well as of dozens, hundreds, and maybe thousands others flogged in the public order courts because of their dress, day after day, month after month, and year after year,” she wrote. “They emerge from there dejected, because society does not believe them – indeed, it will never believe that a girl can be flogged only because of the way she dresses.
Learn the true story about Islamic punishment. Get “The Stoning of Soraya M.”
“The result [of this punishment] is [society’s] death sentence against the girl’s family; for her parents it means an attack of diabetes, hypertension, or heart failure. [Just think of] the girl’s emotional state, and the disgrace that will follow her for the rest of her life – and all because [she wore] trousers. The number [of victims] will keep growing, because society refuses to believe that a girl or woman can be flogged because of what she wears,” MEMRI reported.
The organization reported that such abuse of women was thrust into the national debate by the arrests of the women. Ten of those accused already have been given 10 lashes while three other cases, including the one against Hussein, await resolution.
“Incidents of this kind are widespread in Sudan and are usually disregarded by the local and global media,” the organization said. “Hussein, however, decided to bring the issue to the attention of the public, and printed 500 invitations to her court proceedings and to the flogging to which she would likely be sentenced, distributing them to journalists and friends.
“In an interview with Al-Arabiyya TV, Hussein explained that she had given out the invitations because otherwise no one would believe that she was to be flogged for wearing ordinary clothes,” MEMRI reported.
“I wanted the punishment to be executed in the presence of observers, so that they see for themselves why I was being flogged,” she told Al-Arabiyya.
“I want everyone to be present – my sympathizers, friends, and family, as well as those who exult in my misfortune. It is an open invitation to the public. I haven’t described the incident [that led to my arrest] in detail, since [I want] people to hear with their own ears and see with their own eyes the charges as well as the prosecution witnesses, rather than only my side of the story,” she said.
She said the crux of the problem is that the law allows up to 40 lashes or a fine or both against women for “improper dress,” but there’s no definition of that behavior in the law.
“As for me, I will say nothing to the court except ‘Yes, this is true.’ Let it be known what crime I have committed,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Arab Network for Human Rights Information condemned Hussein’s arrest and called it an act of revenge for publishing articles critical of the Sudanese government, MEMRI reported.
“Sudan’s public order laws are among the most discriminatory against Sudanese women. They violate several basic freedoms that should be the right of every citizen. These laws, directed against working women and female students, were enacted expressly to persecute them, humiliate them, and deprive them of freedom, and to distance them from public life. And now, the police have devised a way to use these laws against an oppositionist journalist,” MEMRI said the organization stated.
WND reported earlier when the situation initially developed.
“Flogging women for wearing pants is both outrageous and against the dignity of the women,” said Jonathan Racho, regional manager for Africa and the Middle East for International Christian Concern, in a statement at the time.
The Sudan Tribune reported Hussein was one of several women taken by the Islamic nation’s Public Order Police from a ballroom near the capital, Khartoum.
The women were in violation of the law, they were told, for wearing trousers.
Some of the women arrested were non-Muslims under 18, who were given 10 lashes and a fine.
The ICC said by subjecting the girls to inhumane and degrading treatment, the Sudanese officials violated international human right standards as well as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005 by the Islamic government of Sudan and the mainly Christian and animist southern Sudanese.
The ICC said the agreement documented that Islamic laws are “not applicable to non-Muslims.”
David Choat, the congregational affairs officer of the mission of the government of South Sudan to the U.S., told ICC, “The flogging is an imposition of Islamic values on Christians and it’s also a violation of religious freedom. This is telling us (the Sudanese people) that there are certain religions that are more important than the rest.”
According to the Sudan Tribune, the French government also is protesting the actions.
“France strongly condemns whipping of 10 Sudanese women announced yesterday. We are particularly concerned by information that many others could be sentenced to similar sentences,” Eric Chevallier of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the news agency.
