State prosecutors in Sudan are calling for the death penalty to be reinstated for a young woman who was sentenced to five years in jail for killing her abusive husband.
Noura Hussein, 19, was found guilty of premeditated murder in May and had faced execution. But a month later, after a high profile campaign, the verdict was quashed and she was given a jail sentence and fined for manslaughter.
However, it has emerged that prosecutors are seeking to overturn the latest ruling and reinstate the death penalty.
Hussein was forced to marry at 16. She fled the marriage, but was tricked into returning to her husband by family members. She stabbed him as he tried to rape her.
Judy Gitau, a human rights lawyer at Equality Now, which is campaigning on Hussein’s behalf, said the development was extremely concerning. “We reiterate our calls to the Sudanese authorities to ensure that the rule of law is observed,” said Gitau. “The Sudanese government took a positive step forward for women’s and girls’ rights by overturning Noura’s death sentence. There should be no regression on this.”
Equality Now is asking Hussein’s supporters to send letters of concern to Sudan’s attorney general, Omer Ahmed Mohamed, the justice minister Dr Idris Ibrahim Jameel, and the National Commission for Human Rights of Sudan.
Asked how she was coping in prison, Hussein told the Guardian she had applied to study law at university. Her lawyers said she had been offered a scholarship to study at the Open University of Sudan.
Sudan allows girls as young as 10 to be married. More than a third of girls in Sudan are married before 18 according to the UN, and 12% are wed before they reach 15.
Since the case, Hussein’s family have been forced to leave their home in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, fearing reprisals from the dead man’s family.
His father told al-Tayyar daily newspaper in Khartoum that the familywere not going to forgive Hussein. He added that even if she were executed they would still seek revenge because Hussein was only a woman who had killed a man, and women were not equal to men.
The No to Women’s Oppression group is mediating between the two families.
Hussein’s lawyer said he did not know when a decision on this latest appeal would be made.
