No Return to the Dark Ages': Women Protesters Support Lubna in the Streets of Khartoum

UPDATED 10:38 am Aug, 4, 2009

Women protesters in Khartoum, Sudan at Lubna Ahmed Hussein trialThis photo on the front page of the NYTimes is amazing! To the many people reading these details of Lubna’s trial, I want you to know that this issue will not go away.

We won’t let Lubna’s story die — even if her case is dismissed — and we will move from Khartoum, Sudan to the next country, and the next, and the next — sharing not only women’s stories, but the progressive facts (good and bad) of how women’s lives are changing.

To American women, I will not beat us over the head on this topic. But we have been very, very quiet speaking out for global women. I hope that in the coming years, we will become international leaders and facilitators for women who don’t have our access to technology, iMovie, media and all of our communication tools to educate people on this critical issue: the erosion of women’s rights in many countries.

I’m not at all clear that things are getting better for the majority of women in the world. While both genders suffer, I sense that women suffer moreso. All facts one way or the other, on this topic, are welcomes.

UPDATED: 7:16 am

Lubna Ahmed Hussein’s trial has been rescheduled to September 7. The judge says that the court requires further clarification around her question of legal immunity.

Those of us following her case in depth, believe that the court is stalling for time, either waiting for the mounting political forces in Sudan to take action to change the law or, trying to throw out the case on the grounds that Lubna Hussein never should have been arrested and hoping that the whole mess will just ‘go away’.

Read Al Jazeera English: Sudan postpones ‘trouser’ trial

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Lubna Ahmed Hussein is back in court today in Khartoum, Sudan. Reuters reports dozens of women in the streets carrying banners and wearing headbands saying “No return to the dark ages.”

As stated in the last few days, Lubna’s lawyer Nabil Adib Abdalla says that if Lubna Hussein is found guilty of breaking Sudan’s indecency law by wearing trousers in public, we will ask for a stay of the proceedings to challenge the trial in the constitutional court. “We are saying the law is so widely drafted that it contravenes her basic right, her right to a fair trial.”

via Reuters