| May God keep safe her soul so long as her body is in the hands of evil men. |
Amira Osman Hamed faces a possible whipping if convicted at a trial which could come on September 19. Under Sudanese law her hair -- and that of all women -- is supposed to be covered with a "hijab". But Hamed, 35, refuses to wear one.
Her case has drawn support from civil rights activists and is the latest to highlight Sudan's series of laws governing morality which took effect after the 1989 Islamist-backed coup by President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
"They want us to be like Taliban women," Hamed said in an interview with AFP.
She is charged under Article 152 which prohibits "indecent" clothing.
Activists say the vaguely worded law leaves women subject to police harassment and disproportionately targets the poor in an effort to maintain "public order".
"This public order law changed Sudanese women from victims to criminals,"says Hamed, a divorced computer engineer who runs her own company.
"This law is targeting the dignity of Sudanese people." Hamed said she was visiting a government office in Jebel Aulia, just outside Khartoum, on August 27 when a policeman aggressively told her to cover her head.
"He said, 'You are not Sudanese. What is your religion?'" "I'm Sudanese. I'm Moslem, and I'm not going to cover my head," Hamed replied.