A teenager who stabbed her husband as he Rap£d her is facing renewed calls for the death penalty. Noura Hussein, 19, was sentenced to death in Sudan after being convicted of premeditated murder in May. But a month later the ruling was overturned and she was instead jailed for five years and fined for manslaughter.
It has since emerged that state prosecutors in Sudan want to overturn this and have filed a petition for the death penalty to be reinstated. Judy Gitau, a human rights lawyer at Equality Now, told The Guardian: ‘We reiterate our calls to the Sudanese authorities to ensure that the rule of law is observed. ‘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 has been campaigning on Hussein’s behalf and has urged supporters to send letters to Sudan’s attorney general Omer Ahmed Mohamed, the justice minister Dr Idris Ibrahim Jameel, and the National Commission for Human Rights of Sudan.
Hussein was forced to marry her husband at just 16-years-old, but she refused to accept and fled, living with a relative for three years. Family members then tricked her into returning home, where she stabbed him as he tried to Rap£ her. Her family have been forced to leave their home because they fear revenge attacks from his family. In Sudan, girls as young as 10 can marry and more than one third are married before the age of 18. Quoting the daily al-Tayyar newspaper, The Guardian said his family want revenge because ‘Hussein was only a woman who had killed a man and women were not equal to men’.
