Thursday, March 22, 2007

It Takes Two To Tango




But it only takes one to be sentenced to death by stoning for adultery in Sudan. Of course that one will be the woman:

Two Sudanese women have been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery after a trial in which they had no lawyer and which used Arabic, not their first language, the rights group Amnesty International said.

Sadia Idriss Fadul was sentenced on February 13 and Amouna Abdallah Daldoum on March 6 and their sentences could be carried out at any time, the London-based group said in a statement released late on Monday.

North Sudan implements Islamic sharia law.

...

The male accused in Fadul's case was let off because there was not enough evidence against him. Witnesses are usually required to gain a conviction and forensic tests are not normally used in such cases.

I'm trying to get my brain around this idea that witnesses might have seen the adulterous intercourse well enough to name the woman but not the man. Or what is it that they mean by witnesses? Is it the four male witnesses that some versions of sharia law require? How does one get four male witnesses to adultery without any one of them interfering to stop it?

This looks to me like patriarchy at its starkest.

To protest the planned stonings, go here.
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via feministe