Category: News & Politics

Outrage as 9 Sudanese women face 40 lashes for wearing trousers

Sudanese women leave after voting at a school turned into a polling station in Al-Jarif West, outside Khartoum, Sudan. Pic: Ashraf Shazly/AFP

A Sudanese Christian woman arrested for wearing trousers has narrowly escaped the punishment of 40 lashes, in a case that human rights groups say is further damning evidence of the government’s intolerance to its Christian population.

Fardos Al Toum, 19, was arrested for indecency along with 11 other women in June in front of a church in Khartoum by the so-called morality police, who enforce the government’s strict codes, for appearing in public in trousers and skirts.

A judge pronounced his guilty verdict on Monday, and the rest of the 9 accused women will appear at separate trials throughout July, the threat of flogging still hanging over them.

Muhamad Mustafa, Al Toum’s lawyer, said it was pressure from activists and campaigners which prompted the court to abandon the punishment of lashes in this case. “This is the weirdest decision I have ever heard: the judge instead of declaring her innocent has convicted her without punishment, and this is itself is unlawful decision,” Mustafa told the Guardian.

“He gave her a lecture about the appearance of decent women, and he found himself in a bad position among the activists who came to support her. He didn’t want to lose his arrogance – that is why he came out with this decision.”

The women, aged between 17 and 23 and originally from the Nuba Mountains region on the border with South Sudan, have gained the support of groups who say the case is an example of the ongoing prejudice against Christians by a Muslim government intent on enacting Islamic law.

The group are being charged under article 152 of the criminal code which, based on Sharia law, bans “indecent dress”. Elfatih Hussain, another lawyer representing the women, says that the application of the rule is too broad: “They have different traditions and customs from Muslims, and they are being tried because the law is [too] loose,” Hussain told the Guardian.

Social stigma
In 2009, the Sudanese government faced international outrage following the arrest of journalist and UN officer Lubna Hussain – along with 13 other Christian women – who were also threatened with 40 lashes each for wearing trousers.

Amal Habbani, a rights activist with the group No to Women’s Oppression claims that between 40–50,000 women are arrested and flogged every year by the public order police because of their clothing.

Because the standard for contradicting what is considered “public morality” is subjective and not defined, Habbani says, the law is frequently applied arbitrarily, to the detriment of women and girls.

However not all cases receive media attention because it can “create social stigma to the women”, she said.

Habbani explains that this particular case reached widespread attention because of the activism of the women themselves, and thanks to social media support. “The cases are usually against women in the marginalised areas in Khartoum, and amongst poorer women,” Habbani said.

Amnesty International has called for the charges against the 12 women to be dropped. In a statement released on Sunday the organisation said: “It’s outrageous that these women face a risk of being flogged simply for choosing to wear a skirt or a pair of trousers. The public order law is imposed in a way which is hugely discriminatory and totally inappropriate and violates women’s rights.”

One of the accused, Wigdan Abdallah, said that the police mistreated the group and held them in a truck for hours before taking them to the police station in Bahri district, where they spent a further 16 hours.

“We were taken in a big truck along with drunken people and they kept driving with us on the streets of Khartoum from 9pm until 2am before arriving to the police station. Until then we didn’t know the reason for our arrest,” she said.

“The police abused us verbally – but they didn’t beat us – and we kept telling them we are not guilty of anything because we were wearing trousers or skirts with shirts, which are the normal clothes that we wear everyday and most of the girls in Sudan wear.”

Nahid Gabrallah, the director of Seema, a centre working to protectwomen and children, said: “We are very worried about [the women’s] wellbeing and psychological health, because according to our previous studies in similar cases they try to commit suicide after they go through such experience,” she said.

Organised prejudice
Sudan is a religiously, culturally and ethnically diverse country, however president Omar al-Bashir has long made his intolerance towards the country’s Christian and traditional African religions clear, which together make up 3% of the country’s population, according to official figures.

Bashir declared famously in a speech in 2010 prior the secession of South Sudan, that the country would follow Sharia law: “We don’t want to hear anything about diversity – Sudan is an Islamic and Arabic country.

“Sharia (Islamic law) and Islam will be the main source for the constitution, Islam the official religion and Arabic the official language,” he said.

For the people of the Nuba Mountains, this latest arrest is further evidence of an organised campaign of discrimination against them.

Arno Ngotilu, spokesman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, said arrests like these are just further examples of the ruling party’s intolerance. “The National Congress Party is a racist group, and what happened to the girls is part of their campaign launched by the president in Nuba Mountains against the Nubian people.

“They want to rule Sudan with a very narrow-minded view, imposing one religion, one culture and one language,” said the rebel spokesman, whose group has been fighting the government in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile states since 2011.

Lawyer Hussain said that a major judicial shift is needed to stamp out such abuses of the criminal code: “We need to change the whole legal system in Sudan, which is against the Sudanese constitution itself and international human rights such as the international covenant on civil and political rights that Sudan has ratified,” he said.

“They were wearing ordinary clothes that all girls their age in Sudan wear, and what happened to them is a systematic discrimination against women.”

Zeinab Mohammed Salih for the Guardian Africa Network

9 years ago

Zimbabwe’s game of political musical chairs is not really about us

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe announced yet another Cabinet reshuffle last week. (Pic: AFP / Mujahid Safodien)

Last week, yet another cabinet reshuffle was announced in Zimbabwe, with one more Zanu-PF minister, Joel Biggie Matiza, losing his position barely six months after assuming it. His removal followed the grand purge of multiple cabinet members — including former presidential affairs minister Didymus Mutasa and former vice-president Joice Mujuru — late last year on allegations of leading and encouraging party factionalism against President Robert Mugabe.

But while Matiza was the only removal of this latest process, the largest media space has been reserved for news of the reassignment of Jonathan Moyo from the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity to the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development.

The enigmatic Moyo — who recently had a public Twitter spat with the former governor of South Africa’s Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni — is rumoured to have been removed from his position as a result of deepening friction between him and Emmerson Mnangagwa, one of Zimbabwe’s two vice-presidents. Ironically, Moyo’s 2005 ouster from Zanu-PF is attributed to his keen involvement in a factional plan to bring Mnangagwa to the then-vacant post of vice-president, a position that was assumed by Mujuru until her expulsion.

Factionalism is indeed the staple offering of Zimbabwean politics at the moment, with the MDC — that once potent opposition — following suit with Morgan Tsvangirai’s own purge of 21 party parliamentarians on grounds of factionalism earlier in the year. As one joke goes, “If you send two Zimbabweans to the moon, they will come back with three political parties.”

The humour and bizarreness of it all aside, I am perpetually disconcerted by what gets amplified, and left out, in discussions around these ongoing purges. Take for instance, the terminology used to describe Moyo’s reassignment to the tertiary education ministry. This has largely been deemed a “demotion”; a control measure to put Moyo back “in his place”.

With a track record as a ministry where wayward Zanu-PF politicians are sent for “punishment” or as an “in-between place”, the negative connotations associated with this portfolio are hardly new. Former finance minister Herbert Murerwa was once “demoted” to this post in the same way that the late Stan Mudenge (once minister of foreign affairs) was meted out this same fate. In more recent times, the post has fallen to Olivia Muchena (who was removed from cabinet along with Mutasa and others) and Oppah Muchinguri, who replaced Muchena after vacating the Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development ministry as rumours swelled that First Lady Grace Mugabe would take up the Cabinet position.

I am well aware that not all ministerial positions are perceived to be equal in terms of power and influence when it comes to political manoeuvring. I am also aware of the reported hierarchal ordering with Zanu-PF’s politburo; a strategic line of succession to the presidential position. But something is very wrong when a ministry of tertiary education comes to be seen as the proverbial sacrificial lamb of a cabinet; a position of so little consequence that it relegates its occupier to near oblivion. That is saying a lot for a portfolio supposedly dealing with one of the Zimbabwean citizenry’s fundamental needs; education. And it would appear the gender ministry suffers a similar negative perception as, until the appointment last week of Nyasha Chikwinya to the post of minister, that position had been vacant since December last year.

If there was ever a time that these two portfolios could be deemed inconsequential, now is not it. Strikes, and threats thereof, have become the modus operandi of many state tertiary institutions. In March, following a lecturers’ strike over outstanding salaries, the University of Zimbabwe shut down abruptly, with students forced to vacate halls of residence indefinitely, the university reopening a day later against mounted pressure. Ironically, this was at a time when the strong #RhodesMustFall student movement in South Africa was influencing widespread debate and discussion around race, power and oppression, all leading to the removal of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes on the grounds of the University of Cape Town.

I recall once having a conversation with an influential media executive with a large local company who remarked that she would always think twice before hiring a local graduate, favouring working with the few returning Zimbabwean students trained at western universities, or in South Africa.

“I don’t have to start from scratch teaching them basic things like how to work digital programmes and equipments,” she said, alluding to the fact that where learning does occur, it often proceeds with demotivated staff and outdated and scarce equipment.

“Time is money.”

So vast has become the rift.

What, then, are the chances of young local Zimbabwean graduates being professionally competitive if they are not attractive — even to their own job market, which, mind you, remains severely compromised by excruciating levels of unemployment?

Recently, also, Prosecutor-General Johannes Tomana spoke in defence of courts that did not jail paedophiles who could “prove” that they had gained sexual consent from girls as young as 12. In his comments, which raised widespread uproar, he also recommended marriage for these young girls (to their sex offenders) as an alternative to poverty. In a survey conducted by Plan International and presented to Parliament last week, it was found that 58% of people within community settings did not see anything morally wrong with sleeping with underage girls.

Given these staggering challenges, and many more, Zimbabwe doesn’t really have the luxury of calling any one of its ministerial portfolios “inconsequential” or “unimportant”.

As enthralling and immersive as factionalism has come to be, it seems we have lost sight of the fact that it serves as yet another distraction from serving and representing our genuine interests, and those of many Zimbabweans not afforded much privilege to articulate their own grievances. The question, perhaps, is whether it actually matters to still have genuine interests within a media and political landscape that favours characters over causes, and sectarianism over service.

No doubt, Zimbabwe is currently suspended in a perpetual game of musical chairs, with politicians across the spectrum scrambling for scarce seats of power as we spectate.

But what happens when the music stops, no one really knows.

Fungai Machirori is a blogger, editor, poet and researcher. She runs Zimbabwe’s first web-based platform for women, Her Zimbabwe, and is an advocate for using social media for consciousness-building among Zimbabweans. Connect with her on Twitter.

9 years ago

Kenyan protesters warn Obama against bringing up gay rights during visit

Kenyan anti-gay protesters marched in Nairobi on Monday, warning US President Barack Obama not to speak about gay rights when he visits the country of his ancestors later this month.

“We do not want Obama and Obama, we do not want Michelle and Michelle,” they chanted. “We want Obama and Michelle and we want a child!”

Kenyans, some of whom are members of a Christian lobby group, hold a protest against homosexuality in the Nairobi, on July 6, 2015, signalling to US President Barack Obama their opposition to gay rights ahead of his visit to Kenya. (Pic: AFP)

“It is important for us as Kenyans to know that the US is not God, and thus we cannot follow them blindly,” said protest organiser and evangelical Christian pastor Bishop Mark Kariuki.

Kariuki said Obama was welcome to visit “his father’s home” but should not “talk about the gay issue.”

The demonstration drew around 100 people, wearing T-shirts and waving posters with the slogan “Protect The Family”.

It came a day after Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto, who is on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague accused of crimes against humanity, told worshippers at a church service that homosexuality was “against the plan” of God.

“We have heard that in the US they have allowed gay relations and other dirty things,” Ruto said, according to the Daily Nation newspaper.

“I want to say as a Christian leader that we will defend our country Kenya, we will stand for our faith and our country.”

Afraid Obama ‘will preach equality’

Ruto made similar comments in May when US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Kenya.

Homophobia is prevalent in many African countries and gay sex remains illegal in several nations, including Kenya where it was outlawed under British colonial legislation.

The march Monday was organised by the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, a coalition of several churches.

Obama’s visit later this month will be his fourth to Africa since becoming US president, but his first to Kenya since taking office in 2009. He will also travel to Ethiopia.

Kenyan artist Dayan Masinde, displays a piece of his art in Nairobi on June 26, 2015 depicting US President, Barack Obama with Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta sharing a local dish. (Pic: AFP)

Pro-gay rights activists warned of rising intolerance in Kenya, including attacks on homosexuals and alleged cases of lesbians being raped to “cure” them.

“The anti gay movement is spreading to Kenya… cases of discrimination and violence are increasing because of the very homophobic speeches,” said lawyer Erik Gitari, from the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

“Obama has been associated with equality and liberation, being the first black US president. They are afraid that he will preach equality here,” said Gitari.

In conservative Christian and Muslim countries in Africa, homophobia is a vote-winner.

In Uganda, legislators sought the death penalty for homosexuality and although the anti-gay law was watered down and then overturned, ruling party MPs remain eager to see it passed.

Nigeria and Gambia have passed tough new anti-gay laws in recent years, with Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, calling homosexuals “ungodly, Satanic… vermins [sic]” in a speech last year.

In Kenya, too, a cross-party parliamentary group is seeking stricter application of existing anti-gay legislation.

9 years ago

How Britain’s khat ban devastated an entire Kenyan town

Khat’s psychoactive ingredients – cathinone and cathine – are similar to amphetamines but weaker, and can help chewers stay awake and talkative. (Pic: AFP)

In a quiet and unassuming town tucked away in a hilly part of eastern Kenya, the British home secretary Theresa May’s name is spoken with barely concealed anger. Since her role in the ban of the town’s most valuable export, she’s become a universally vilified figure.

For more than two decades, Maua enjoyed booming business propelled by the growth and sale of khat, known locally as miraa, a popular herb whose leaves and stems are chewed for the mild high they offer.

But last year the UK, home to one of khat’s biggest markets, declared the stimulant a class C drug and banned all imports, prompting Maua’s rapid descent into economic purgatory.

Since the early 1990s, Britain has imported between 2,500 to 2,800 tonnes a year, according to the Home Affairs committee. Although in its initial findings the committee could not find a compelling health or social reason to ban khat, May’s argument – that continuing to allow trade in the UK would spawn off an illegal export corridor to other European countries where it is banned – won out in what became a controversial cultural debate.

Now, a year after the legislation was signed, residents in Maua have been hit hard by a shrinking local economy that has left many facing poverty.

Losses

Edward Muruu is one of the earliest pioneers of the khat export trade. A retired headmaster at a local primary school, he says he has experienced unprecedented losses since the ban came into effect.

“I used to ferry miraa (khat) from Maua to Nairobi four times a week using 27 Toyota Hilux trucks, where it was repackaged for export. I used to make around £2 100 a month. Now I am lucky if I bring in £250 per month,” he says.

With the European market gone, the only place left for Muruu to sell his stimulant is Somalia, where consumers now dictate how much they pay – and it’s not much.

“The other issue with the Somali market is that the only people who can transport miraa to Mogadishu are Kenyan Somalis, meaning that the rest of us drivers have been put out of work,” says a former worker of Muruu’s, who only identified himself as Kanda.

According to Kanda, if non-Somali drivers attempt the trip they are attacked along the journey. For a town of its size and location, Maua has a disproportionately large number of residents of Somali heritage, most of whom are involved in the khat trade as middlemen. They are also big consumers themselves.

‘Miraa was the heartbeat of this town’

The effects of the London ban have reached everybody in the khat micro-economy, from the big name traders like Muraa to the small fish who depend on the trade for their survival.

Although Muraa has made investments that have cushioned him against the blows of a deeply depleted income, those at the lower end of the food chain have not been so lucky.

Miriti Ngozi, chairman of the Miraa Traders Association, says that many farmers and traders are no longer able to pay school fees or even buy enough food for their families.

“You have to understand that in this region, subsistence farming has long been overshadowed by the more prestigious miraa farming. Now that people are no longer making money from miraa, they do not have money to buy food and many families are sleeping hungry,” he says.

Yet many remain reluctant to uproot their khat crops and plant maize instead, holding on to the hope that their fortunes might one day return.

Pius Mbiti, a trader in his early 30s, is a qualified vet but says that he makes most of his income from picking and selling the stimulant.

“On a good day I used to make up to £12 which, when supplemented with earnings from my vet practice, was enough to take care of my family. But since the ban I am lucky if I make even £2 pounds,” he says.

He cannot rely on animal medicine any more either because farmers no longer have the money to pay for his services.

This narrative is familiar across the town, with the common refrain being that shutting down miraa imports to London is killing businesses indirectly linked to the herb.

“The miraa trade was the heartbeat of this town; it drove everything else. With revenue from miraa so drastically low, people no longer have the money to buy things,” says Lawrence Kobia, who owns a bookshop. He says that his sales have plummeted by more than 40% since last year.

Seizures

In its submissions to parliament, the Home Office committee warned that banning khat would result in the formation of a black market – as seen in the United States and other European countries including Norway and Holland.

Although initially khat sold for between £3 and £4 a kilogram in Britain, the committee reported that if it was banned the price could increase to £318, similar to its price in the US.

Their predictions turned out to be true: there has been a proliferation of the stimulant in London since the ban. While the border police have no statistics on seizures, the London Metropolitan police says it has handled a number of khat-related offences.

A spokesperson said that in the first six months after the ban came into effect, a total of 68 warnings and 14 penalty notices were issued. In addition, 36 people were arrested for possession of the herb, four of whom were later charged.

In the meantime, the Kenyan government is trying hard to get the ban lifted, with President Uhuru Kenyatta even promising the farmers in Maua as recently as February that he will petition to have the market reopened for them.

The farmers, however, see this as a cheap political move to whip up support, complaining that no tangible rewards have come from promises made by politicians regarding the matter in the past.

But the squabbling over high-level politics in Kenya and the workings of the parliament in Britain are meaningless to the miraa farmer in Maua, whose only worry is where the next meal will come from.

Jacqueline Kubania for the Guardian Africa Network

9 years ago

Lupita Nyong’o joins fight to save Africa’s elephants

Lupita Nyong’o delivers a speech during a press conference at the Villa Rosa Kempinski hotel in Nairobi on June 30 2015. (Pic: AFP)

Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o has returned home to Kenya to spearhead a new campaign to stop the record slaughter of elephants for their valuable ivory.

More than 30 000 elephants are killed every year to satisfy demand for ivory in China and the Far East where it is worth more than $2 000 a kilogramme.

The 32-year old actress – who won an Oscar for her portrayal of the slave girl Patsey in 12 Years a Slave and will appear in Star Wars: Episode VII later this year – said on Tuesday her visit to a national park and elephant orphanage in Kenya had been “life-changing”.

“It was my first time to really have an intimate experience with elephants. What struck me was how big they are, how quiet they are,” she said. “It was really a breathtaking experience.”

The Hollywood star and model has signed up as an ambassador for conservation organisation WildAid, which engages celebrities to spread awareness of poaching and wildlife crime.

Nyong’o said she hoped her involvement would help save Africa elephants for future generations.

“I really do intend for my children to have that same experience,” she said.

For Nyong’o, who was born in Mexico to Kenyan parents, grew up in Kenya and studied in the United States, the visit was also a homecoming.

“I am proud of my Kenyan heritage, and part of that heritage is the incredible wildlife haven that is in our care,” she said, speaking with an American accent in English. “Poaching steals from us all.”

Nyong’o will soon feature in a series of WildAid adverts aimed at raising awareness of the elephant’s plight.

“It is time to ban sales of ivory worldwide and to consign the tragedy of the ivory trade to history,” she said.