Lubna Hussein
After being sentenced to jail on Monday for refusing to pay her $200 fine for violating Sudan’s indecency laws by wearing trousers in public, Lubna Hussein has now been freed. Bec Hamilton in a piece at Foreign Policy explains that the head of the Sudanese Journalists’ Association (SJA) paid Lubna’s fine, but…
If anyone thinks this was an act of solidarity by one journalist toward another, think again. Independent journalists in Khartoum refer to the SJA in the same scathing tone as they do the “Gongos,” the governmental “nongovernmental organizations” that Khartoum runs to demonstrate to the West its robust civil society. Indeed, the links between the government and the SJA are too tight to claim anything approaching independent status. The truly independent association of journalists in Sudan is called the Sudanese Journalists’ Network — but you’ll be hard-pressed to hear anything about it because any statements it issues are censored from Sudanese papers.
So, for today it looks as though the government has won. In effect, it paid the fine to shut down both Lubna’s challenge to Article 152 and the unwelcome media attention that her act of civil disobedience spurred.
Meanwhile, more Sudanese and Arab human rights organizations have issued their condemnation of the Sudanese government for its handling of the entire ordeal. In its statement, the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) focused on the arrest of 48 women protesting in Khartoum in support of Lubna’s case:
Police and security forces used excessive force during the arrest and eyewitnesses confirm that women were severely beaten and dragged into to a police pick-up. Three of the women were seriously injured… These three women were transferred to the hospital.
Among the women who were arrested are lawyers, journalists, women rights’ activists and members of opposition political parties, all members of a newly formed initiative known as No to Women’s Oppression. The objective of the initiative is to educate the public Sudan’s public orders laws and the ways in which they are oppressively targeting women. The initiative is calling for the complete annulment of the public order legislation.
The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) declared that Lubna’s case “was a trial of the Sudanese regime not of Lubna.”
This trial necessitates canceling the article #152 from the general discipline law which violates all international legislations and human rights accords and provides all means of oppressing and humiliating the Sudanese women.
ANHRI requests the Sudanese government to respect the right to demonstrate and not to stop demonstrations using violence.
A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also issued a statement:
Lubna Hussein’s case is emblematic of a wider pattern of discrimination and application of discriminatory laws against women. Ms Hussein was arrested along with 13 other women. The arrests of all, and not only Lubna Hussein, were arbitrary and left to the discretion of police officers.
What will happen now? Hamilton – currently on her way back to Sudan, this time with U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Scott Gration – argues that Lubna’s case “is now part of a larger campaign by a group of similarly brave Sudanese women, working for women’s rights from inside a repressive system.” Indeed, this campaign will likely integrate itself within the greater work of Sudanese human rights activists who have been striving for years to protect those specifically and brutally targeted by the Sudanese government (such as those in Darfur).
Many of these same groups have also worked hard – and usually without much international attention – to push for the rights to freedom from arbitrary arrest and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as rights to free association and to due process of law. These rights are expressly protected in the Bill of Rights contained in Sudan’s Interim National Constitution. However, as the U.N. spokesperson stated, while the Sudanese government has already committed itself to these reforms in multiple agreements:
Under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, national laws, such as the Criminal Act, require a comprehensive review in order to bring them into line with the Interim Constitution and Sudan’s international human rights obligations. This review has yet to be completed.
So, with Lubna perhaps now a new courageous symbol of their cause, these Sudanese activists will continue their long, uphill climb against the regime in Khartoum to change the repressive system from within…
The opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Save Darfur Coalition.
Tags: Government of Sudan, Human Rights, Lubna Hussein, pants, Sudan, trousers, Violence Against Women
