In Solidarity: African Women and Human Rights Organisations across Africa

Women across Africa are appalled by the decision to try a Sudanese woman journalist Lubna Ahmed Hussein and two others for violating the public dress code. African women and human rights organizations urged the court to dismiss the charges and abolish this repressive law against women. “The charges are clearly an abuse of women’s human rights and violate Sudanese women’s full enjoyment of international conventions, most
notably, the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa,” says Faiza Mohamed, Director of Equality Now which is part of the Pan African coalition Solidarity for African Women’s Rights Coalition. The coalition has 33 members working in 25 African countries for the ratification and implementation of the Protocol.


According to the press reports, thirteen women were arrested by police in a restaurant in Khartoum, Sudan, and charged with violating the public dress code under article 152 (Indecent and Immoral Acts) of the 1991 Penal Code on 10 July 2009.10 women have already been flogged. The arrests took place when the public order police stormed the restaurant and arrested women diners dressed in trousers, which they regarded as ‘indecent’.
Tuesday 4th August is the date set for the court hearing.

Women’s organizations have already started to petition the Government of Sudan to repeal discriminatory laws against women, which are embedded in Sudanese legislation. A few hours after its release, the petition was attracting signatures from across Africa and elsewhere in the world.

The petition is signed by Sudanese women’s organizations and states that the actions by the public order police and Courts of Sudan contradict the declared government commitment to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
(CPA) signed on 9 January 2005 and the National Interim Constitution and uphold the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) - which Sudan acceded in 1986- which prohibits torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment such as flogging and protects women's rights to be free from discrimination based on sex.

Additionally, as Sudan continues to seek Africa’s support to set aside the warrant of arrest from the International
Criminal Court, the charges brought against these women completely undermine the spirit of the AU Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, signed by Sudan on 30 June 2008. The Protocol emphasizes that women’s right must be respected and that existing discriminatory laws and practice should be reformed in order to promote and protect the rights of women. “The call by women’s organisations that the Government of Sudan must cease the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments, guarantee respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms throughout the country in accordance with the National Interim Constitution and regional and international human rights standards must not only be heard but must be heeded to immediately” said Ms. Mohamed

SOAWR calls on African women to continuously write to the Sudanese authorities, regional and continental intergovernmental bodies at the highest level should the courts act contrary to the Interim Constitution and regional human rights standards and convict Lubna Ahmed Hussein and two others


End
The petition available online at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/end-repressive-laws-targeting-women-insudan
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