Wednesday, September 09, 2009 Edition.
Sudanese 'indecent' female journalist freed unexpectedly
| Wednesday 9 September 2009 07:01. |
September 8, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese female journalist jailed yesterday after being convicted of indecent dressing was released well before her one month jail sentence expired.
The judge yesterday ordered Lubna Hussein to pay a fine of 500 pounds ($200) or else be jailed for 30 days.
The ex-employee at the United Nations Mission Sudan (UNMIS) refused to pay the fine saying it is an admittance of guilt adding that she also wants to use the opportunity to explore conditions in the women prison.
Her choice to be imprisoned reflected her defiant attitude since she was arrested by Public Order Police (POP) last July, along with a dozen other girls and charged with dressing inappropriately.
Hussein with a couple of the detainees refused to concede to the charges and asked for a full blown trial with the presence of her attorney.
She also resigned from her post at the UNMIS to waive her immunity bestowed upon employees of the world body. However, the judge postponed the hearing until yesterday until an opinion on her immunity is received from the Sudanese foreign ministry.
Witnesses at the trial yesterday said that the judge appeared to be in a rush to conclude the hearing and issue a ruling.
She proceeded to the women's prison in Omdurman yesterday after refusing to pay the fine.
However, today the head of the journalist union Mohyideen Titawi announced that they have paid the fine and received a judge order to release Hussein.
The journalist expressed dissatisfaction at the move by the union saying she did not ask for it and that she instructed her friends and family not to pay it.
Titawi said that the union paid the fine because it had a responsibility to "protect journalists when they are in prison".
"No journalist should be jailed under any circumstances….the case is now over" he said.
Many journalists and observers told Sudan Tribune from Khartoum that they believe that Titawi was nudged by the government into pay the fine to avoid escalation of the international public relations nightmare created by the case.
"She was a journalist when she was arrested for indecency. Where was Titawi and his union? Did he just now discover that she is a journalist and intervened on her behalf?" a journalist who asked not to be named told Sudan tribune.
"This is just a face saving move by the government and Titawi was its tool. They [government] don't want to appear like they lost the battle with Lubna. The fact of the matter that they lost miserably in this scandal," he added.
The Sudanese journalist Union is widely viewed as a pro-government body. The group was heavily criticized for failing to stand up to the government on press censorship.
The United Nations human rights office said Hussein's conviction violated international law.
"Lubna Hussein's case is in our view emblematic of a wider pattern of discrimination and application of discriminatory laws against women in Sudan," U.N. human rights spokesperson Rupert Colville told a news briefing in Geneva.
"No defense witnesses were heard. It is not clear there is a chance to appeal," he told Reuters.
The case of the Sudanese journalist is not uncommon but the latter has worked to make it public by printing invitations to her trials and showing pictures of how she was dressed when arrested by POP.
(ST)
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article32401
Email this storySudanese woman jailed in trouser case freed
Sudanese 'indecent' female journalist freed unexpectedly
Related:
Lubna Hussein stands firm
Lubna Hussein, convicted in Sudan for wearing trousers, has refused to pay her fine. She'll now go to jail as a result
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- Nesrine Malik
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 September 2009 11.30 BST
- Article history
Lubna Hussein is greeted by supporters outside the court in Khartoum. Photograph: Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images
The scenes I saw outside the court which convicted Lubna Hussein were even more dramatic than those during the last quickly adjourned trial. Security forces and female protestors clashed again, but a third party introduced itself into the fray – Islamist men who proceeded to abuse the women and rip up their banners while the police joined in the name-calling. It seems the whole case has flushed out the nastier elements in Khartoum society as female supporters of Hussein were branded "prostitutes", that being the most polite word into which I can translate the insults.
According to Najlaa Al Maahi, one of Hussein's legal team, with whom I spoke after the trial, the proceedings were hastily conducted and the defence was not allowed to make its case. The general sentiment was that the guilty verdict and the sentence, a fine of £130, had been decided in advance and the trial was merely a formality. The goal apparently was to tar Hussein as indecent but not resort to lashing. This would leave the case against her intact, but not enact a brutal punishment while the world watched. Government supporters were hailing her conviction as a victory while their opponents saw the fine as a climb-down from the initial penalty of flogging, one which Hussein would have endured had she not challenged those who detained her.
The nominal fine and an admission of culpability – in effect a plea bargain – was rejected by Hussein for whatever residual admission of wrongdoing it suggested. The sentence for refusing to pay, a month's imprisonment, was threatened in order to put pressure on her to pay, but the judge may have underestimated her defiance. Sending her away for a month not only allows the court to flex the muscles it had been unable to flex through flogging, but also hide her away from scrutiny by the world's media, dampening any spirit of victory or jubilation.
More disturbingly, the end of the case has flushed out hardline elements allied with the government who appear to be relishing the opportunity to villify the women who have been protesting. The irony is that on the way back from court I witnessed several women in trousers freely walking the streets of Khartoum proving that it was never about modesty but about Hussein's refusal to capitulate to the authorities' temperamental and arbitrary invocation of public order laws.
The court may believe that it has struck a face-saving balance by refusing to rescind the charges against Hussein while also avoiding flogging her. However, her supporters are regrouping, an appeal is already being planned and the case had crystallised a hitherto unaddressed conflict over the public face of Khartoum. A regime keen to encourage foreign investment and prosperity after forging peace in the South has relaxed its grip over the city with sporadic reversions to its earlier, more Islamic incarnation. The aftermath of the case may determine whether this chaotic and inconsistent approach will be tolerated for much longer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/sep/08/lubna-hussein-trousers-sudan
Lubna Hussein stands firm
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