The London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International has welcomed the suspension of a flogging sentence against a 16-year-old girl convicted last year of adultery, but urged the Sudanese authorities to treat the case in accordance to their obligations under international human rights law.
Sudan's chief justice on Wednesday suspended the sentence against Intisar Bakri Abd al-Qadir, pending her appeal against it. She was to have received 100 lashes, with the punishment due to be carried out on Friday.
Benedicte Goderiaux, Amnesty International's programme officer for Sudan, told IRIN that whereas her organisation had not adopted any stance against Islam, it considered punishments such as flogging, torture, amputation and execution as cruel, degrading and inhuman. "The sentence was inconsistent with Sudan's commitments under international human rights law," Goderiaux said. "Moreover, the girl is below 18. She is a child. Such a punishment contravenes the right of the child," she added.
According to Goderiaux, the law was applied unfairly against Intisar, whose pregnancy was used in court as sufficient evidence for a conviction, yet the man involved only needed four witnesses to prove his innocence.
Intisar's lawyer Ghazi Sulayman, who is also a human rights activist, told IRIN on Thursday that he had appealed against the sentence on the grounds that she was not only a Christian, and therefore not bound by Shari'ah, but also that she was still was a minor.
"The chief justice of Sudan ordered a stay of execution and promised to look at my appeal," Sulayman told IRIN from Khartoum. "I am very optimistic that the high court of Sudan will dismiss the case against her," he added.
According the Koran, the Islamic holy book, a man or woman convicted of adultery is to receive 100 lashes. It also says those who "defame honourable" women and cannot produce four witnesses shall be given 80 lashes.
The girl, who reportedly lives with her mother in a shanty town outside Khartoum, gave birth in September to a son. The man who she alleged to have raped her has, however, denied having had any connection with her. The punishment had initially been postponed because she was pregnant, and then in December because she was in poor health.
Sulayman criticised the magistrate who had passed the sentence. He went on to say that he intended to lodge a separate suit against the man who allegedly raped Intisar. "I will ask for more evidence against the man and even, where possible, a DNA test to prove the paternity of the child," he said.
Meanwhile, the Swiss-based World Organiation Against Torture (OMCT) on Thursday expressed concern over the "unfair" trial and sentencing to death of 14 people and to cross-amputation of one other person in Sudan.
Nine people were at risk of execution and cross-amputation, without the right to further appeal, the Supreme Court in Khartoum having dismissed their initial appeals against their sentences, which had been issued by a specialised criminal court, the organisation said in a statement.
In other separate cases, the statement said, the Nyala criminal court in the Darfur region of western Sudan had sentenced five men to death by hanging after convicting them of murder under Article 130 of the Penal Code (1991). The five appeared before the criminal court in May 2003 and were sentenced on 3 November, without any legal representation.
The detainees alleged that they had been beaten and tortured by police officers in order to force them to confess, OMCT added. "The International Secretariat of OMCT is gravely concerned for the physical and psychological integrity of the individuals, who are at risk of being subjected to cross-amputation in the case of Mr Muhammad Ishaq Muhammad or execution in the case of the other persons in question, and this as a result of unfair trials," the statement said.
According to OMCT, the procedures used in the courts did not meet international standards for trials, notably due to the lack of legal representation of defendants in most of the cases. It urged the Sudanese authorities to "immediately" commute the sentences and guarantee respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms country-wide.
OMCT said that the international human rights conventions ratified by Sudan prohibited torture, such as amputation, under any circumstance. "OMCT...is strongly opposed to the death penalty as an extreme form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a violation of the right to life, as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments," it added.