The Most Courageous Thing I Have read Today

SHOOT: It's good to see some people standing up not only for their rights, but for common sense.

clipped from news.yahoo.com Lubna Hussein was among 13 women arrested July 3 in a raid by the public order police in Khartoum. Ten of the women were fined and flogged two days later. But Hussein and two others decided to go to trial. "I will not pay a penny," she told the Associated Press while still in court custody, wearing the same trousers that had sparked her arrest. The Amnesty statement said Sudan had been urged to amend the law which permits flogging, on the grounds that it is state-sanctioned torture, after eight women were flogged in public in 2003 with plastic and metal whips leaving permanent scars on the women. The women had been picnicking with male friends. As a U.N. staffer, Hussein should have immunity from prosecution but she has opted to resign so that she could stand trial and draw attention to the case. "When I think of my trial, I pray that my daughters will never live in fear of these police ... We will only be secure once the police protect us and these laws are repealed," she wrote.