NAIROBI, Kenya — A Sudanese woman who wore pants in public was fined the equivalent of $200 but spared a whipping on Monday when a court found her guilty of violating Sudan’s decency laws.
The woman, Lubna Hussein, an outspoken journalist who had recently worked for the United Nations, faced up to 40 lashes in the case, which has generated considerable interest both inside and outside Sudan.
Mrs. Hussein vowed to appeal the sentence and even walked into the court in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, wearing the same pair of loose-fitting green slacks that she had been arrested in.
Manal Awad Khogali, one of her lawyers, said the judge hearing the case had called only police witnesses to testify and refused to allow Mrs. Hussein — who had pledged to use her trial to bring attention to women’s rights in Sudan — to defend herself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/world/africa/08sudan.html?_r=1&hp