Sudan women 'lashed for trousers'

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

Several Sudanese women have been flogged as a punishment for dressing "indecently", according to a local journalist who was arrested with them.

Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who says she is facing 40 lashes, said she and 12 other women wearing trousers were arrested in a restaurant in the capital, Khartoum.

She told the BBC several of the women had pleaded guilty to the charges and had 10 lashes immediately.

Khartoum, unlike South Sudan, is governed by Sharia law.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8147329.stm

[David__77]

1. Sharia is criminal at its roots.

Theocracy is reactionary and barbaric. Religion has no place in jurisprudence. This is just one example of the horrors that ensue when it does.

[ensho]

2. true

nt

[Taverner]

11. Oh but that makes you INTOLERANT (SARCASM)

:sarcasm:
How dare you say another culture is right or wrong! It doesn't matter if they hang women for being raped - we must be tolerant of all cultures, no matter what they do...

[JerseygirlCT]

19. Sharia is also often misinterpreted as used as cover for

cultural horrors that persist from way back when.

But I completely agree that theocracy is reactionary and barbaric.

[Captain Hilts]

3. Can't empower women by permitting them to wear pants. nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. Lashin' for fashion?

This is truly a 13th century government in the 21st century.

<tongue-in-cheek>Lashings for what women wear? The only time I could see this justified would be in the case of whoever invented pantyhose. For that individual, 40 lashes would be about right.</tic>

Back to serious - this sharia law is crap, involving lashings, stonings, honor-killings of wives and daughters who dare to do things like drive a car.

:hi:

[amandabeech]

7. I agree on the pantyhose inventer, except I think that 40 are too few.

Spent too many days in D.C. in the summer wrapped in those damned things.

[pnwmom]

8. You must not be old enough to remember

garter belts and stockings. Or -- worse -- girdles and stockings. Panty hose were a relief.

[femrap]

9. Not me!

On a hot day, give me an all cotton garter belt and cotton underwear...at least some of my skin can breathe. Those pantyhose....I feel like a sausage in them.

And in the summer, why wear nylons at all????? See? The men in our capital can REQUIRE women to wear 'sausage casings,' can't they? Or you're fired, right?

Lots of men get aroused at a bare leg or a woman in sandals showing bare toes....now we can't have that. An erection that has nowhere to go at work????

Fucking Dress Codes. Put the men back in ties so I can give them an occasional choking! lol.

[pnwmom]

14. I guess I'M the one that's not old enough, because I never had

a cotton garter belt. Are you sure you did?

:)

[Gwendolyn]

18. It's the new designs that are made of cotton. Well, the daily wear ones anyway.

MUCH more comfortable than stifling in pantyhose.

[femrap]

32. Positive....

It was from Sears and I was in the 8th grade. I kept it for years. They made stuff that lasted back then...no spandex that 'evaporated.' It had a little bow in the front....all white.

[Hello_Kitty]

33. Not a problem here in Phoenix, AZ

It was 113 degrees today. If someone told me I had to wear pantyhose I'd tell him or her to go pound sand. Needless to say, things tend to be pretty casual around here, especially in the summer.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

17. I'm plenty old enough, but I'm a male

so my "disappreciation" of pantyhose may not come from the most honorable of motives

:evilgrin:

:hi:

[pnwmom]

5. Western governments are just as bad, because they make women

. . . oh wait -- maybe they're not just as bad.

:shrug:

[David__77]

6. Not in that area, not at all.

And a weakness of some is falling into the pit of cultural relativism. This is not about respecting local "cultures," but rather about the contrast between a (relatively) progressive and a backward social system. The west has its own faults to answer for, but not here.

[demigoddess]

45. last I heard a woman still had to wear a skirt to argue before the USSC

Freedom, schmeedom

[jkappy]

10. Isn't Western Porn/Prost. the same form of ownership? n/t

[Gwendolyn]

12. Quite simply, no. n/t

[pnwmom]

15. No. They have porn and prostitution in Muslim countries, too. n/t

[jkappy]

20. but it's not normalized and accessible as in the west n/t

[Gwendolyn]

21. That's true. Western governments don't beat or kill women who take their clothes off...

for the camera.

[pnwmom]

24. Touche. n/t

[cali]

23. in a word: no. not even fucking close.

[XemaSab]

35. What?

:shrug:

[harry_pothead]

38. No, unless they're being forced to do it.

[ZombieHorde]

42. Not even close. nt

[midnight]

13. Women around the world have got to help each other out. We

cannot allow this to continue. No matter how clever they sell this oppression-don't buy it.

[Hello_Kitty]

34. Amen. Do NOT try to excuse this bullshit as 'culture'.

Torture isn't culture.

[tomreedtoon]

16. We can't stop their oppression. Only women can.

I'm sure it has to be a cliche by now, in books about the Middle East. Someone is wearing a burka and veil, and it isn't a woman, but a guy hiding machine guns.

When did blacks start to get recognition in America? When they protested and fought. When did the American public first become aware that homosexuals existed? After Stonewall. When did people realize that football, in fact all sports, are exercises in fascism? Well, we haven't really stood up against ALL oppression yet, but it's coming...

Anyway, I think only if these oppressed women started killing the men and religious leaders who oppress them - if they had the courage and the determination to do so - will the situation change. Nobody ever gave anyone else rights from the goodness of their hearts.

[Mari333]

22. heres another thing to consider though

we boycott nations like S Africa when Apartheid occured against black folks, but we snuggle up to places like Saudi Arabia when Apartheid occurs against women..
i guess women dont rate as much as anyone else.

[pnwmom]

25. Very true. When women are discriminated against, it's "cultural" not "human rights."

[tomreedtoon]

26. Oh, sure, another WIMP boycott.

What do you get from South Africa? Do you know? Do you think America, which is now officially a third world nation, would matter to them? What do we buy from them, tourist souvenirs?

Like so many other people on DU, you refuse to accept the basic fact that nothing changes until the oppressors suffer some pain. I don't want to describe "what pain" because it will probably traumatize your latte-sipping soul. And again, it is not America's business to make them stop. It's up to the women of that country to start fighting physically. It's not our fight. It's theirs.

[Mari333]

27. jesus f christ take a valium or something

you can speak to me with some modicum of respect you know. try it, people might take you seriously.
edit to add: you little shit.

I was fucking referring to Apartheid that existed in s africa and the ensuiing boycotts of goods and services of S africa that occured that made them change...do you even READ history?
and I do agree that the women in those countries need guns, so before you start painting other people on here with a broad brush and running off your mouth at their posts , you might want to think before you motherfucking post.
Im too old to put up with that shit from some damned kid.
I have the flu tonight. I feel like shit.
dont expect me to read your answer Im putting your adolescent ass on ignore.

[Posteritatis]

29. That's my favorite edit of the day (nt)

[Skittles]

40. a well-deserved one

:thumbsup:

[tomreedtoon]

30. Your flu medicine is making you loopy.

First, I am not a kid; the fact that I can write with proper grammar WITHOUT resort to obscenities might be your first clue.

Second, you weren't talking about apartheid. You were talking about prejudice against, and hatred for women, which is an international problem. And it isn't limited to the Middle East. Didn't you ever learn that porn basically is hatred of women?

Third, I'm glad you won't see this message, since you're so obviously psychotic and pig-headed you should be writing for Rush Limbaugh.

Don't let the door hit you in that bottle of Robitussin you've been swigging from, that you're hiding in your back pocket.

[XemaSab]

37. Porn basically is hatred of women?

[tomreedtoon]

43. In gay porn, the other guy IS the woman.

And don't try to tell me that gay porn treats the partner with any more respect than straight porn treats the woman.

One of the wisest things I ever heard was, "The counterculture is just a reflection of conventional culture." In other words, the prejudices of the conventional culture were the same as that of the freakiest hippies and feminists. (Did you forget that the SDS also considered homosexuality to be a sin beyond reproach?)

In the same way, porn for gays exploits people the same way as porn for straights.

[Posteritatis]

28. "officially a third world nation?" LOL, perspective failure. (nt)

[Hello_Kitty]

36. Every time some wingnut neo-con knucklehead tries to play the women's rights card

When justifying the invasion of Iraq, I ask when we're going to invade Saudi Arabia.

[Mari333]

41. true dat/ nt

[Odin2005]

31. Barbaric!

:puke:

[Alamuti Lotus]

39. bear in mind, a prominent leftist opposition writer

I would suspect that Lubna and her friends were targetted for political reasons from a paranoid insecure government, not relating to whatever social laws the state is alleging (how many mobsters were busted for tax evasion or jaywalking?).

[ohio2007]

44. this is old news. last year it was "Xtian school girls" getting beat up

and two years ago a teacher was almost lashed and or stoned to death when the classroom children voted to name a teddy bear.... you know who"

British teacher faces lashes in Sudan after class teddy bear is named 'Muhammad'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article2947734.ece