Journalist jailed for wearing trousers freed

Associated Press reports that the woman journalist convicted in the Sudan of "public indecency" for wearing trousers was freed today, despite her own desire to serve a month in prison as a protest against Sudan's draconian morality laws.
The judge who convicted Lubna Hussein had imposed a $200 fine as her sentence, avoiding the maximum sentence of 40 lashes but she refused to pay the fine, which would have meant a month's imprisonment.
Hussein told AP that she was freed after the fine was paid without her knowledge by the Journalist Union."I had no choice. All my friends knew I didn't want to pay the fine," Hussein said, speaking from Khartoum. "I had chosen prison, and not to pay the fine in solidarity with hundreds of other women jailed" under this law.
Via Editor & Publisher