Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, a Sudanese journalist, is at the center of a high profile trial in Sudan. She was charged by the government with “indecency” for wearing trousers. This crime carries the penalty of forty lashes from a whip.

Lubna Hussein, a former journalist and U.N. press officer, talks to the media outside the court after her trial in Sudan’s capital Khartoum August 4, 2009. Dozens of protesters rallied outside a Khartoum court on Tuesday in support of Hussein, who faces 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public, in a case that has become a public test of Sudan’s indecency laws. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallh

She was arrested along with twelve other women at her cousin’s wedding. She was humiliated in front of hundreds of people, and then struck on the head by police after calming the other frightened women.
After this story gained wide media coverage and international attention, Sudanese officials looked to get the case dismissed. Al-Hussein was an employee of the United Nations and was therefore immune, they said.

Al-Hussein responded by quitting her job and demanding a trial in the hopes of getting the law thrown off the books. Her defense was that the law was not justified by Islam and not grounded in the country’s constitution.

At her second court date last Tuesday, supporters lined the streets. Many wore trousers as civil disobedience. They chanted against a return to the “Dark Ages.” The police used tear gas to disperse the crowd, saying it became a riot.

The court adjourned the case until next month to investigate the issue of her immunity further. They may seek a face-saving measure as a way out, so as not to cause any changes to the law while avoiding international criticism.

Al-Hussein has become a symbol for her willingness to challenge the law directly, and through the Sudanese court system.

Sudanese women demonstrate during the trial of Lubna Hussein. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallh

“I’m ready for anything to happen. I’m absolutely not afraid of the verdict,” she said.
“If I’m sentenced to be whipped, or to anything else, I will appeal. I will see it through to the end, to the constitutional court if necessary.

“And if the constitutional court says the law is constitutional, I’m ready to be whipped not 40 but 40,000 times,” said al-Hussein, who also works for the left-wing Al-Sahafa newspaper.

The law in question is Article 152, which decrees up to 40 lashes for anyone “who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing.”

“Indecent dress,” many women there argue, is not defined in the law, thus leaving it up to the whims of arresting officers. It gives women no guidelines on how to dress.

Al-Hussein argues this has no basis in religion. “If some people refer to the shari’a to justify flagellating women because of what they wear, then let them show me which Qur’anic verses or hadith (sayings of the Prophet Mohammed) say so. I haven’t found them,” she said.

She linked this to criticism of the government: “The acts of this regime have no connection with the real Islam, which would not allow the hitting of women for the clothes they are wearing and in fact would punish anyone who slanders a woman.”

“These laws were made by this current regime which uses it to humiliate the people and especially women. These tyrants are here to distort the real image of Islam.”

This is in line with increasing efforts by human rights activists in Muslim majority countries to use religious arguments to further their causes. If she is successful in changing the law, it would bolster such a strategy, and likely inspire others to follow suit where feasible.

If effective, al-Hussein could spare thousands of Sudanese women from state violence. She estimated that “Tens of thousands of women and girls have been whipped for their clothes these last 20 years.” She added “it’s not rare in Sudan.”

Still, she faces considerable challenges.

She was personally threatened by a man on a motorcycle.

Authorities are not responding to her efforts and have been harassing her supporters. Police assaulted one of her attorneys. They also cracked down on another woman journalist, Amal Habbani, who published an article in the paper Ajrass al-Horreya (Bells of Freedom) entitled: “Lubna, a case of subduing a woman’s body.”