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Sudanese Trial Prompts Protests, Police Beatings
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A Sudanese journalist, Lubna Hussein, faces forty lashes if found guilty of breaking the country’s indecency law that forbids women from wearing pants and other articles of clothing deemed inappropriate.
The 43-year-old Hussein was arrested along with 12 other women in a July 3rd raid on a popular cafe in Khartoum, Sudan. Around 100 supporters, most of them women, some clad in trousers, protested the unfair law outside of the courthouse, prompting violent crowd-control tactics by the public order police.
According to the AP: “The 1991 indecency law was adopted by Sudan’s Islamic regime which came to power after a coup led by President Omar al-Bashir in 1989. It follows a strict interpretation of Islamic law that imposes physical punishment on ‘those who commit an indecent act that violates public morale; or who dress indecently.’”
Hussein says that the law is not only “an insult to human dignity”, but that it is not supported by Islamic text.
Hussein also held a job in the U.N.’s public information office up until the start of the trial, at which point she resigned, forfeiting her right to immunity in order to challenge the law. The U.N., however, has not faltered to provide her with support. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Sudanese authorities to not flog Hussein, as the act is “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”.
Although many Third World countries are making great strides to improve the rights of women, there is still much work to be done. Although this issue pales in comparison to other atrocities committed against females, such as female genital mutilation, it highlights the things that still need to be worked on. Lubna Hussein is reaching out to the world for support. By giving her that support, not only are we showing the women of Sudan that we care about their plight, but we are also inspiring more women to take up the cause of equality.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090804/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_sudan_women_flogged;_ylt=Anpe.G01.QOEFm5KpWEqtIqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTM4NnQ3MGhyBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwODA0L21sX3N1ZGFuX3dvbWVuX2Zsb2dnZWQEY3BvcwM1BHBvcwMyBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDcG9saWNlYmVhdHdv
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6:15 am
Well, I for one agree with you here, Claire. Excellent work and I really hope the best for Lubna.
The reports say she was simply planning her cousin’s wedding, sipping a Coke and enjoying a singing performance by an Egyptian lady, at a public venue.
Then the morality police showed up and literally abducted her, on accusations of being ‘trouser girl’. Apparently, when they took her in the van these abusive heathens had the nerve to ‘beat and batter her face’ and expected her to beg for mercy, as per their custom.
That is just sick and sadistic, and hopefully her rights are not trampled. Also, if they try to punish her even more for standing up for herself, I think country’s should offer her immediate political asylum if she so desires.
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6:19 am
Adam, you’re just as sexist as they are. Shut your hole.
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6:34 am
That’s just not necessary. I’ve actually followed this story and happen to agree with you. This is wrong in every way and women in Sudan should be able to wear pants.
The men in that country have no right to lay their violent hands on women. Hopefully they know our Christian God sees their sins and will asking them about all this on the day of judgment.
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6:45 am
“Jesus is not a woman either, just like his Heavenly FATHER. God is a man. Deal with it, rib.”
“Like a typical woman, Eve could not follow rules”
“So, yes, a man needs to keep a woman in place.”
“When a woman marries a man, she becomes a gift unto the man”
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4:19 pm
“Disciplining your wife when she gets out of line is one thing, make unnice threats to rough good people up is another.”
“I saw one of the women creatures wearing pants and tie today, bossing around an office full of men.”
You also posted this video:
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4:36 pm
Stop trying to paint me as something I’m not, Claire. All I’m saying is that this mongrel towelies have no God-given right to torture these innocent women in such ways.
I wish we could send our army over there and teach them a lesson or two and teach them a lesson about freedom, just like we did Saddam and his ragtag troops.
Speaking of which, doesn’t Sudan have other things to worry about. Important things, like genocide?
Really, we should already be over there establishing a proper government for them.
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4:43 pm
“Stop trying to paint me as something I’m not, Claire.”
I’m not trying to “paint” you as a sexist, you ARE a sexist. Those are all direct quotes from you.
“All I’m saying is that this mongrel towelies have no God-given right to torture these innocent women in such ways.”
And yet you think that white men have a “god-given right” to torture their wives.
“I wish we could send our army over there and teach them a lesson or two and teach them a lesson about freedom, just like we did Saddam and his ragtag troops.”
So you want the U.S. to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people, just like in Iraq and Afghanistan?
“Really, we should already be over there establishing a proper government for them.”
No, we shouldn’t.
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2:12 am
See how you do. You twist words and then try to make people look bad. That’s no good and quite frankly, we don’t have time for such things following what was actually a well written article by you.
Sudan has genocide. Shouldn’t we be over there preventing innocent people from getting slaughtered? I think so and if you have a caring heart, you do too.
And no, torturing people is not ok. That is even more reason why we must send our troops to Sudan to liberate the people from the fascist regime, and set up a proper American elected government for their poor country.
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6:19 am
“You twist words and then try to make people look bad.”
Do you not understand what a DIRECT quote is?
“Shouldn’t we be over there preventing innocent people from getting slaughtered?”
Whenever the U.S. involves itself if the affairs of another country, EVEN MORE people end up dying, and we have yet another country that HATES us. We should not become violently involved in another country’s affairs unless they pose a threat to the rest of the world. You seem rather happy to just go out with guns blazing. Whatever happened to peaceful negotiations?
“I think so and if you have a caring heart, you do too.”
Hmm, this coming from the man who just called the Sudanese “mongrel towelies”. I know that you were referring to the torturers, but you do realize that the majority of the Sudanese wear head wraps?
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12:16 pm
Why would we need bombs if we can just send in drones and bomb suspected terror camps? After we clear it out and bomb any semblance of their military having buildings/jeeps with mounted guns back to the stone age, we can send in the UN troops to liberate the areas being subjected to genocide.
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5:43 am
hehehe
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6:35 pm
“After we clear it out and bomb any semblance of their military having buildings/jeeps with mounted guns back to the stone age, we can send in the UN troops to liberate the areas being subjected to genocide.”
How about we stop fucking around in other countries?
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2:09 pm
What a sick backward people, not lettign a women wear pants. Hope God strikes them all down with famine or drought.
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2:14 pm
While I do happen to agree that the Sudanese are a quite barbaric people and our military will eventually need to intervene in their political matters, they do have a point with women who wear pants.
Women should be in the habits of wearing proper skirts in most venues. The headscarves are archaic and too much, though a neat hairstyle should be worn by a woman as well. This especially goes for those who are married, as they should abide by their husbands dressing preferences in public (which in Sudan, is a bit more conservative) and out of respect, should not be revealing by any means.
Police beating upon a random woman for wearing such things is quite sick, though a husband does have authority to chastise and gently ‘encourage’ his wife is she insists on dressing like a harlot.
It goes to show that the nation of Sudan is quite dark and needs guidance.
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3:35 pm
“Women should be in the habits of wearing proper skirts in most venues.”
I see absolutely no reason why women shouldn’t wear pants, especially if said pants are relatively modest and not skin tight. For example, I will not wear a pair of jeans that are more form-fitting than this:
http://z.about.com/d/budgetstyle/1/0/L/2/-/-/gap_curvy_trouser_jean.jpg
I would never be caught dead in jeans that are this tight:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_b7upVkbQ3xI/SHOmA413sXI/AAAAAAAADkg/MHnSr7iVlXM/s400/Cheap+Monday+tight+jeans.jpg
However, if a woman wants to wear jeans that are tight, then it’s not my right or the right of anybody else to say that she can’t.
“as they should abide by their husbands dressing preferences in public”
Why on earth should husbands get to choose what they wives wear? My mom always asks me, my sister, and my father our opinions on her clothing choices, just to see if the pants go with the shirt, or the skirt matches the necklace or whatever, but obviously she makes the final decision, because she’s the one wearing said clothing. Any woman who “abides by their husband’s dressing preferences” is extremely insecure and probably doesn’t realize that she’s allowed to think for herself.
“though a husband does have authority to chastise and gently ‘encourage’ his wife is she insists on dressing like a harlot.”
No, he doesn’t. Frankly, I’d rather be beaten by the police than “gently” chastised by someone who is supposed to love, protect, and respect me. I feel sorry for your wife, and if you treat her like you just described, she has every right in the world to castrate you while you sleep.
“It goes to show that the nation of Sudan is quite dark and needs guidance.”
Abuse is abuse. Just because the hand that you lay on your wife creates a welt but doesn’t cause bleeding, doesn’t mean that it is not abuse, and should not be tolerated. Judging from the fact that you believe wives are in submission to their husbands and that women are inferior to men, I think you’d be quite content living in Sudan.
Have you ever seen the movie “The Burning Bed”? If not, I suggest you rent it. Perhaps then you’ll think twice about “gently” hitting your wife because she decided to wear pants.
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2:28 pm
Anyone who has a compulsion to attache the same “cat video” to every post they start, over and over and over, shows clear and definitive signs of several serious mental disorders. Psychotic Fixation Cognitive Disorder and Dissociative Feline Neurotic Narcissism are just a couple of certain diagnosis.
You may be wearing your woman pants to tight which can cause a restriction of blood flow to your ovarian tubercles which can lead to a serious decrease in the production of estrometadaxone, an essential hormone for the production of neurotransmitters in the female brain. This in turn leads to the mental disorders I mentioned. Since this all originates in the area of the uterus, the term ‘hysterical’ was originally coined. (hysterectomy…hysterical)
Claire, you are hysterical and need medical treatment. Treatment is very successful and you can be thinking, dressing and talking normally in no time.
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