No flogging for trouser-wearing woman in Sudan
Not much to add. Just makes you weak thinking of all the flaky “Democratic” governments in the world.
I’ve never understood the contention that pants are less modest than dresses.
The numbers don’t lie:
Chances of accidentally flashing your panties to the world by sitting down, wearing a skirt: High
Chances of unathorized panty-flashing while sitting down, wearing pants: Zero
Chances that “Unathorized Panty-Flashing” would make a good band name: Low, but somebody had to say it
I rest my case.
It’s hard to describe the Sudan authorities as ‘democratic’.
Basically there’s a history of military coup, civil war, religious fanaticism, torture and use of child soldiers.
From here:
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… all effective political power was in the hands of President Omar al-Bashir, who took power in a military coup on 30 June 1989, and began institutionalizing Sharia law in the northern part of Sudan along with Hassan al-Turabi. Further on, al-Bashir issued purges and executions in the upper ranks of the army, the banning of associations, political parties, and independent newspapers and the imprisonment of leading political figures and journalists. Al-Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) was created and became the only legally recognized political party in the country for the next decade.
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A letter dated August 14, 2006, from the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch found that the Sudanese government is both incapable of protecting its own citizens in Darfur and unwilling to do so, and that its militias are guilty of crimes against humanity.
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The US State Department’s human rights report issued in March 2007 claims that “All parties to the conflagration committed serious abuses, including widespread killing of civilians, rape as a tool of war, systematic torture, robbery and recruitment of child soldiers.”
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Both government forces and militias allied with the government are known to attack not only civilians in Darfur, but also humanitarian workers. Sympathizers of rebel groups are arbitrarily detained, as are foreign journalists, human rights defenders, student activists, and displaced people in and around Khartoum, some of whom face torture. The rebel groups have also been accused in a report issued by the American government of attacking humanitarian workers and of killing innocent civilians.
It seems to me that the government of Sudan wouldn’t be able to get away with enforcing these religious laws if more women made a stink like this woman did.
Government: You have been charged with wearing pants. What is your choice: flogging or long protracted trial?
Woman: I’ll take the long protracted trial, thank you very much.
Gov: Fine, fine. You have been convicted of wearing pants, you are fined $200.
Woman: I’m not paying.
Gov: What?
Woman: I’m not paying, take me to prison so that I may write about the horrible conditions there and send my findings off to foreign governments everywhere.
Gov: Well…then…umm…well, nothing, we guess. Just go away.
Apparently, she didn’t get sentenced to flogging because the gummint there doesn’t like the attention they’d get from that sentence. I guess someone, somewhere, is learning.
Still, though, when I read the article a few days ago, my first thought was, “I wonder what her real, unpublished punishment will be.”
On the off chance that anyone might be interested in real answer, the rationale* behind it is that trouser wearing is a male thing. A woman trying wear trousers is trying to be a man. And we all know what happens to uppity women.
*ratioanle is not the same thing as rational.
Forget flogging, forget stoning. I say we bring back the ducking stool.