Five Sudanese Athletics Team Members Convicted for Wearing Indecent Clothing

(25 December 2015) Five members of the Sudanese Athletics Team, including three women and two men, have been convicted for wearing indecent clothing by a Public Order court in Khartoum. The five were arrested on 28 November together with five other team members for wearing swimming costumes during a swimming training exercise in the White Nile River.

On 20 December 2015, The Public Order Court of Jabal Awliya, on the outskirts south of the capital Khartoum, convicted the five athletes under Article 152 (Indecent and Immoral Acts) of Sudan’s Criminal Act of 1991. They were each sentenced to a fine of 500 Sudanese Pounds (approximately 82 US Dollars) or to two months imprisonment.

Article 152 provides that, “[w]hoever commits, in a public place, an act, or conducts himself in an indecent manner, or a manner contrary to public morality, or wears an indecent, or immoral dress, which causes annoyance to public feelings, shall be punished, with whipping, not exceeding 40 lashes, or with a fine, or with both”.

The five – Ahmed Suliman (m), Farouq Ahmed (m), Safa Osman Abdul Kareem (f), Muna Barsham (f), and Durriya Adam (f) – reportedly paid the fine.

The broad and ill-defined criminalisation of acts and attire deemed to be “indecent or immoral”, under Article 152 of the 1991 Criminal Act and other public order laws, raises a number of serious human rights concerns. Law enforcement officials have broad discretion to determine what behaviour, dress or acts are indecent or immoral and although the law is neutrally worded, the enforcement of Article 152 is often discriminatory and arbitrary.

In practice, Article 152 is disproportionately applied against women, ethnic and religious minorities, and individuals who are deemed to transgress social norms by individual law enforcement officials. Public order laws are routinely enforced by way summary trials, without legal representation, and lashing penalties are frequently imposed. These laws raise serious concerns about the right to a private life, fair trial, non-discrimination and the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment or punishment.

The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) calls on the Government of Sudan to repeal Article 152 of the 1991 Criminal Act and all other laws that unnecessarily or disproportionately interfere with the right to a private life, the freedom from non-discrimination and other fundamental human rights guarantees that Sudan has committed to by law.

Background

At around 10am on 28 November the Jabal Awliya Public Order Police arrived to the banks of the White Nile River in Jabal Awliya and called on the national athletics team to stop their training session. Ten athletes were taken in police cars to the Jabal Awliya police station. 5 members of the team were released without charge after they showed their military identification (ID) cards. Members of Sudan’s armed forces are granted immunity from criminal prosecution under the Armed Forces Act of 2007. The five others were charged with wearing “indecent dress” under Article 152 of the 1991 Criminal Act.

Siddeeq Ahmed Ibraheem, Secretary of the Sudanese Athletics Federation and a witness for the defence, told the court during a hearing on 15 December 2015 that the swimming kit worn by the team was the same kit as that recommended by the International Association of Athletics Federations. Both he and the national Athletics Team Coach, Adam Mohamed Hasan, testified to the court that the national athletics team regularly conducts durability exercises in the hills around Jebel Awliya, followed by swimming training in the White Nile River. The coach informed the court that the athletes were arrested whilst training in the river and after they had completed their durability exercises on land. The court also heard that the team members were unable to show their Sudanese Athletics Team ID cards as requested by the police at the time of their arrests because the official IDs had not yet been issued.

Contact: Mohamed Badawi (English and Arabic), Monitoring Programme Coordinator, African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies: +256 783 693 689.