MOSCOW, September 8 (RIA Novosti) - A Sudanese female journalist convicted of indecency for wearing trousers was freed on Tuesday, the Sudanese Union of Journalists said.
The union said it had paid a fine of around $200 for the release of Lubna Ahmed Hussein, who was jailed on Monday after being convicted by a court in Khartoum. She was sentenced to a month behind bars after refusing to pay a fine imposed by the court.
Hussein was arrested in July along with 12 other women, who were later released after pleading guilty and receiving 10 lashes.
Laws in conservative Muslim northern Sudan stipulate up to 40 lashes for women caught wearing "indecent clothing".
Hussein has been an outspoken opponent of Sudan's clothing laws, and earlier resigned from her post as a United Nations media officer, which would have given her immunity from prosecution, saying she wanted her trial to publicise human rights abuses.
The United Nations criticized Hussein's conviction, saying it ran counter to international law.
"Lubna Hussein's case is, in our view, emblematic of a wider pattern of... application of discriminatory laws against women in Sudan," AFP news agency quoted Rupert Colville, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as saying.
