In Sudan, woman jailed for wearing trousers

The case has stirred international outrage and spawned protests in Sudan over the Islamic-dominated government’s treatment of women.

Lubna Hussein, a journalist and former United Nations staffer based in Khartoum, the capital, could have received 40 lashes with a plastic whip under Sudan’s criminal code, which is based largely on Islamic Sharia law.

Instead, a judge ordered Hussein, who stood before the court in the same pair of pants she wore when arrested, to pay a $200 fine. Hussein said she would refuse to pay, and she was taken to a women’s prison to serve a one-month sentence.

“If I paid, it would mean I’d lost the battle,’’ Hussein said after the verdict was announced. “I would rather serve my time in jail.’’

Hussein was arrested earlier this year with a dozen other women, most of whom paid a fine or were lashed.

Western nations lodged complaints about the case. The human-rights group Amnesty International likened public floggings to “state-sponsored torture.’’

Hussein, 43, said she hoped her case would spotlight the repressive treatment of women in Sudan.

More than 100 female protesters rallied to her defense at the courthouse, some dressed in pants, shouting slogans such as, “There is no justice in Sudan!’’ Police arrested more than three dozen protesters and released them after the verdict was announced.

Sudanese women face widespread discrimination in the workplace, and there are few high-ranking female politicians. Even in southern Sudan, which is predominantly non-Muslim, women have faced arrest, discrimination, and attack for behaving or dressing in ways that were perceived by local authorities as immodest.

As a UN employee, Hussein was entitled to immunity from prosecution, but she quit her job so the case would not be dismissed. She sent e-mail invitations to journalists and diplomats asking that they attend her sentencing.

“I chose to resign from the UN so that I could face the Sudanese authorities and make them show to the world what they consider justice to be,’’ she wrote recently in an editorial in Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “I also pray that the next generation will see we had the courage to fight for their future before it was too late.’’

Government officials declined to comment.

The sentencing was twice postponed, reportedly in hopes that Hussein would agree to a settlement and international attention would fade. Hussein’s attorney said his client would appeal the verdict to the nation’s highest court.

Sudanese activists called on the government to reform and clarify the nation’s indecency laws, calling them a violation of the 2005 constitution drafted after a peace deal that ended the country’s 21-year north-south civil war

The treaty called for legal overhaul to strengthen human rights and reflect religious diversity, but the work is not complete.

“There should be definitions and guidance,’’ said Anwar Bashir of the Child and Women’s Rights Institute in Khartoum. “The law is there to protect people, not take away their rights.’’

Sudan’s government implements a conservative version of Islamic law in the north. Under public indecency laws, anyone committing an act or wearing clothing deemed indecent can be punished with a flogging or a fine, but lawyers and human rights groups say the law is too vague and arbitrary. In the capital the “public order’’ police enforce the laws, breaking up parties and scolding men and women who mingle in public.

In mostly Muslim northern Sudan, many women wear traditional flowing robes that also cover their hair, but it is also not uncommon for women to wear trousers, even though conservatives consider it immodest.

Amnesty International has called on the Sudanese government to withdraw the charges against Hussein and repeal the law which justifies such “abhorrent’’ penalties.

The group pointed to an incident in 2003 when eight women were flogged in public with plastic and wire whips, reportedly leaving permanent scars on the women. The women had been picnicking with male friends.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.