Slam from Sudan: how Emtithal Mahmoud shook the world

Emtithal Mahmoud was brimming with rage and misery when she sat down to write her poem Mama. Her grandmother had just died in Sudan, her mother was on a plane to the funeral and she felt consumed by anger.

“I wrote it in one of the darkest times of my life,” she says. “It felt like my grandmother had survived everything, the war, famine, and in the end it was not just cancer, it was lack of access to proper medical research. It was a very dark time. And that poem helped me get through it.”

Hours after writing Mama, Mahmoud – also known as Emi, who was born in Darfur but moved to the US from Yemen as a four-year-old – performed it at the 2015 Individual World Poetry Slam Championship in Washington DC – and won the competition. Full of fury, Mama opens as a man asks Mahmoud: “Hey yo sistah, you from the motherland? … ’cause you got a little bit of flavor in you, / I’m just admiring what your mama gave you.” It becomes a paean to Mahmoud’s mother, who “can reduce a man to tattered flesh without so much as blinking”, who “walks into a war zone and has warriors cowering at her feet”.

Mahmoud will return to Sudan in July, where she has big plans for more community groups and workshops around the country. Mostly she is volunteering, saving the money she makes from events “run by magazines or businesses that pay very well … to do the kind of work you can’t get funding for.”

Mahmoud writes to explore her feelings; she performs, she says, because she has somehow found herself this platform. “A lot of things are said about people like me - young people, black people, Muslim people, women,” she says. “The reason I perform is to answer those things, to be a voice I didn’t really have growing up.”

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The 11-year-old girl divorcing her 38-year-old husband

After the abuse, Amal said that she went to her father for help, but he kept sending her back. Eventually she escaped with the aid of her husband's first wife.

"He treated me horribly," Amal said of her husband. "Then when the beatings became every day, I went to the police station."

A doctor who evaluated Amal's injuries at the station found evidence that she'd been tied up and assaulted.

Though he had heard her story before, Amal's father wept while his daughter talked to us.

"Twice, she came to my home, twice, and was terrified and frightened. I sent her back," he told CNN. "I am regretful."

Amal's father, who works as a tinsmith laborer in the street, is raising six daughters on his own. When he described why he married Amal off -- despite her young age -- he cited tradition and honor.

"When I let him marry my daughter, it was on trust, on the basis that he would look after her, let her continue with her education and honor her as agreed," he said. "But I found that this was not happening. It was all beating, humiliation and provocation."

Many Sudanese parents marry off their daughters in hopes of avoiding poverty, violence or family shame. Unmarried women are often stigmatized as agir, "infertile," or bayra, "not demanded for marriage." But, in reality, child brides are more likely to face sexual, physical and psychological violence, according to UNICEF.

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Noura in her own words: Teen who killed rapist husband shares her story

Sudanese teenager Noura Hussein, who is on death row for killing her 35-year-old husband, in a case that has sparked international outrage, has spoken out for the first time about her forced marriage, and the rape and struggle that happened when she stabbed him.

CNN obtained a first-hand account from the 19-year-old, who is currently awaiting retrial in an Omdurman prison cell after appealing her death sentence.

The teenager's story has put a spotlight on forced marriage and marital rape in Sudan, where the legal age to enter into marriage is 10 and marital rape is not a crime.

Noura's family made her get married at 15, but allowed her to finish school. Three years later, after a public marriage ceremony, her husband tried to consummate the marriage. After refusing to have sex with him on their "honeymoon," she says he raped her as members of his family held her down. A day later her husband tried to rape her again, and she stabbed him to death. When she went to her parents for support, they turned her over to the police.

The Sudanese government has not responded to CNN's requests for comment on the case.
Noura's first-hand account was obtained by CNN. It has been translated, and lightly edited for clarity and length.

Noura Hussein: He told my parents that he wanted to marry me when I was in the 8th grade.
They fooled me after I sat the secondary school exams at the end of that year.
And the first time I even saw him was a week after he proposed the marriage to my uncle.
And from the first time they told me I refused. I told them I don't want to marry, I want to study.
I spoke to him directly and said, "I don't want to marry you."
I fled to Sinnar to my aunt's house, but two days later they brought me back and the religious ceremony took place, two weeks after he first proposed, in our house.

Afterwards I had no communication with him. If he visited the house I left. I told him, I don't want you.

The wedding ceremony was three years later after I sat my school leaver exam. They did all the usual rituals for the wedding, his family are well off, but in all that time I didn't take anything from him -- not a single penny.
I was overwhelmed with anger, I didn't want this man.
I sat in the hairdressers contemplating suicide.

I cried sitting next to him. In the car he kept coming closer to me and I kept moving away. We arrived at the honeymoon flat, I locked myself inside one of the rooms and lay down fully clothed.

This went on -- I refused to eat, I refused to leave my room. On the third day he told me it's time you open the door so I don't break in. I refused but while he slept I crept out and found the door to the flat was locked.
On the ninth day his relatives came, his uncle told me to go to the bedroom. I said no so he dragged me by my arm into the bedroom and his cousin slapped me. All of them tore at my clothing. His uncle held me down by my legs and each of the other two held down my arms. He stripped and had me while I wept and screamed. Finally, they left the room. I was bleeding, I slept naked.
The next day he grabbed me, threw me on the bed and tried to climb on top of me. I was fighting back and my hand found a knife under the pillow. We began grappling over the knife. He cut my hand and bit down on my shoulder.
I ran to my parent's house. I had no idea how I got there. I was still carrying the knife.

I was hoping to finish studying law and then marry, my dream is to be a judge.

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Bites and a broken bed: New details in case of Sudan teen who killed rapist husband

Slashes to her hands, bite marks embedded in her shoulder, and a broken bed.

As the defense team for Sudanese teenager Noura Hussein submitted an appeal to save her life, CNN has learned new details about the struggle that unfolded when she killed her husband, who she says raped her following their forced marriage.

The legal team representing the 19-year-old, who was sentenced to death earlier this month for murder, filed the appeal on Thursday in the capital Khartoum following an international outcry over Hussein's case.

"Noura and indeed the women and girls of Sudan have too often been treated as chattel to be traded and given away as though they are property and as though they have no rights," activists with the Justice for Noura campaign said in a statement on Thursday. "Here today, united and in one voice we wish to say -- enough!"

The teenager's story has shone a spotlight on the issues of forced marriage and marital rape in Sudan, where the legal age of marriage is only 10 and marital rape is legal.

Hussein's family compelled her to marry at 15, but she refused and ran away for three years. Her father forced her to complete the wedding ceremony in April 2017. After refusing to have sex with her husband on their "honeymoon," she says he raped her as his brother and two cousins restrained her. A day later her husband tried to rape her again, and she stabbed him to death. When she went to her parents for support, they turned her in to the police.

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Global outcry as Sudanese woman sentenced to death for renouncing Islam

  

What a disgrace!! A great injustice and an example of oppression and patriarchy is woman was never Muslim her monther is Christian and she raised her Christian her Muslims father was absent!! Yet men decide she must ber Muslims and hasa apostasized! I'm so disgusted.  

A heavily pregnant young woman has been sentenced to death in Sudan for renouncing Islam and marrying a Christian man, in a case which has attracted global condemnation.

Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, 27, was told by a court in Khartoum she would be hanged for committing apostasy by leaving Islam and becoming a Christian. She was also sentenced to 100 lashes for marrying a non-Muslim, which constitutes adultery under Sudanese law.
Mrs Ibrahim is eight months pregnant and has been held since February in Omdurman Federal Women’s Prison, north of Khartoum, with her 18-month-old son Martin. On Sunday she was told that she had three days to recant her faith or face death, but appearing in court yesterday she refused, saying she had always been a Christian.

According to human rights organisation Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Mrs Ibrahim was born in western Sudan to Muslim father and a Christian mother. Her father left when she was six, so her mother raised her as a Christian. She married Daniel Wani, a Christian from southern Sudan who has US citizenship, in 2011.
The charity added that three witnesses from western Sudan had travelled to the hearing to testify that Mrs Ibrahim had always been a Christian, but were prevented from giving evidence.

It is understood that the death sentence will not be enacted for two years after she has given birth, but that the punishment of 100 lashes could be carried out as soon as her baby is born. Mrs Ibrahim’s lawyers are intending to launch an appeal, which could take several months.

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When women are sinners in the eyes of extremists

By Alaa Al-Aswany in The Independent:

The Shabaab movement in Somalia controls large parts of the south and centre of the country, and because officials in this movement embrace the Wahabi ideology they have imposed their views on Somalis by force and have issued strict decrees banning films, plays, dancing at weddings, football matches and all forms of music, even the ring tones on mobile phones.

Some days ago these extremists carried out a strange operation: they arrested a Somali woman and whipped her in public because she was wearing a bra. They announced clearly that wearing these bras was unIslamic because it is a form of fraud and deception.

We may well ask what wearing bras has to do with religion, why they would consider them to be a form of fraud and deception, and how they managed to arrest the woman wearing the bra when all Somali women go around with their bodies completely covered. Did they appoint a special female officer to inspect the breasts of women passing by in the street? One Somali woman called Halima told the Reuters news agency: "Al Shabaab forced us to wear their type of veil and now they order us to shake our breasts... They first banned the former veil and introduced a hard fabric which stands stiffly on women's chests. They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat."

In fact this excessive interest in covering up women's bodies is not confined to the extremists in Somalia. In Sudan the police examine women's clothing with extreme vigilance and arrest any woman who is wearing trousers. They force her to make a public apology for what she has done and then they whip her in public as an example to other women.

Some weeks ago the Sudanese journalist Lubna al-Husseini insisted on wearing trousers and refused to make the public apology. When she refused to submit to flogging she was referred to a real trial and the farce reached its climax when the judge summoned three witnesses and asked them if they had been able to detect the shape of the accused's underwear when she was wearing the trousers. When one of the witnesses hesitated in answering, the judge asked him directly: "Did you see Lubna's stomach when she was wearing the trousers?" The witness gravely replied: "To some extent."

Lubna said she was wearing a modest pair of trousers and that the scandalous pair she was accused of wearing would not suit her because she is plump and would need to lose 20 kilos in order to put them on. But the judge convicted her anyway and fined her £500 or a month in prison.

In Egypt too, extremists continue to take an excessive interest in women's bodies and in trying to cover them up entirely. They not only advocate that women wear the niqab but also that they wear gloves on their hands, which they believe will ensure that no passions are aroused when men and women shake hands. We really do face a phenomenon which deserves consideration: why are extremists so obsessed with women's bodies? Some ideas might help us answer this question:

Firstly, the extremist view of women is that they are only bodies and instruments for either legitimate pleasure or temptation, as well as factories for producing children. This view strips women of their human nature. Accusing the Somali woman of fraud and deception because she was wearing a bra is the same charge of commercial fraud which the law holds against a merchant who conceals the defects of his goods and make false claims about their qualities in order to sell them at a higher price.

The idea here is that a woman who accentuates her breasts by using a bra gives a false impression of the goods (her body), which is seen as fraud and deception of the buyer (the man) who might buy (marry) her for her ample breasts and later discover that they were ample because of the bra and not by nature. It would be fair to remember that treating women's bodies as commodities is not something found only in extremist ideologies but often happens in Western societies too.

The use of women's naked bodies to market commercial products in the West is merely another application of the idea that women are commodities. Anyone who visits the redlight district in Amsterdam can see for himself how wretched prostitutes, completely naked, are lined up behind glass windows so that passers-by can inspect their charms before agreeing on the price. Isn't that a modern-day slave market, where women's bodies are on sale to anyone willing to pay?

Secondly, the extremists believe women to be the source of temptation and the prime cause of sin. This view, which is prevalent in all primitive societies, is unfair and inhuman, because men and women commit sin together and the responsibility is shared and equal. If a beautiful woman arouses and tempts men, then a handsome man also arouses and tempts women. But the extremist ideology is naturally biased in favour of the man and hostile to the woman, and considers that she alone is primarily responsible for all sins.

Thirdly, being strict about covering up women's bodies is an easy and effortless form of religious struggle. In Egypt we see dozens of Wahabi sheikhs who enthusiastically advocate covering up women's bodies but do not utter a single word against despotism, corruption, fraudulence or torture because they know very well that serious opposition to the despotic regime (which should really be their first duty) would inevitably lead to their arrest, torture and the destruction of their lives. Their strictness on things related to women's bodies enables them to operate as evangelists without any real costs.

Throughout human history, strictness towards women has usually been a way to conceal political abuses and real crimes. Somalia is a wretched country in the grip of famine and chaos but officials there are distracted from that by inspecting bras. The Sudanese regime is implicated in crimes of murder, torture and raping thousands of innocents in Darfur but that does not stop the regime from putting on trial a woman who insisted on wearing trousers. It is women rather than men who always pay the price for despotism, corruption and religious hypocrisy.

Fourthly, the extremist ideology assumes that humans are a group of wild beasts that are completely incapable of controlling their instincts, that it is enough for a man to see a bare piece of female flesh for him to pounce on her and have intercourse. This assumption is incorrect, because humans, unlike animals, always have the power to control their instincts by will power and ethics.

An ordinary man, if he is sane, cannot have his instincts aroused by his mother, sister, daughter or even the wife of a friend, because his sense of honour and morality transcends his desires and neutralises their effect. So virtue will never come about though bans, repression and pursuing women in the street, but rather through giving children a good upbringing, propagating morality and refining character.

Societies which impose segregation between men and women (as in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia), according to official statistics, do not have lower rates of sexual crimes than other societies. The rates there may even be higher. We favour and advocate modesty for women but firstly we advocate a humane view of women, a view that respects their abilities, their wishes and their thinking.

What is really saddening is that the Wahabi extremism which is spreading throughout the world with oil money and which gives Muslims a bad image is as far as can be from the real teachings of Islam. Anyone who reads the history of Islam fairly has to be impressed by the high status it accords to women, because from the time of the Prophet Muhammad until the fall of Andalusia, Muslim women mixed with men, were educated, worked and traded, fought and had financial responsibilities separately from their fathers or husbands. They had the right to choose the husband they loved and the right to divorce if they wanted. Western civilisation gave women these rights many centuries after Islam.

Finally, let me say that religious extremism is the other face of political despotism. We cannot get rid of the extremism before we end the despotism.

Democracy is the solution.