Under sharia law in Sudan, a person found guilty of murder is either executed or forced to pay a fine. Forced child marriage and marital rape are not considered crimes in Sudan, and cannot be used as evidence in a defense. The deceased individual's family chooses the punishment, demanding either a pardon, monetary compensation or a death sentence, Salah told The Post. The whole family has to agree on the punishment, Salah said.
The judge asked the deceased man's family which option they wanted, and the family chose execution. As the judge granted the sentence, the man's family began "clapping with joy," according to witnesses cited by Hussein's campaign. Outside the courtroom, supporters of Hussein protested with anti-death penalty signs before being "harassed" by state security troops and told to leave, Salah said.
Randa Elzein tweeted "I was never sadder and more shaken than when i saw Noura today. She walked in with steady feet and a head held high.She is a hero, a survivor and a voice that dared refuse oppression in a society created to oppress.#JusticeForNoura"
Sodfa Daaji tweeted "The court is full. People gathered to support Noura for her last trial. Thanks to our @AfrikaYMmember @badreldinsfor keeping us updated. #JusticeForNoura@ENoMW@elizamackintosh"
The Afrika Youth Movement wrote a letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, condemning Hussein's case as an "atrocity committed by the state of Sudan against a powerless individual, first violated as a female child and then executed as an adult female for the very abuse she in fact suffered."
The group pleaded with international human rights leaders to interfere in the sentence. Groups such as Equality Now are writing to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to plead for clemency. A group of Sudanese and international activists have been visiting Hussein in prison, translating letters of support from across the globe and working with her lawyers to appeal the case. Thousands of people have signed petitions in support of Hussein. A team of Sudanese activists are organizing a protest at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Saturday.
Cases like Hussein's don't come to light often in Sudan, Salah said, because most young women who experience sexual abuse in marriage "don't raise their voices or say anything because of the social pressure or the social stigma. They prefer to stay silent." But Hussein's case was different.
"Noura stood up," Salah said. "Noura rebelled on the family and on the social system."
Hussein's case is significant, Afrika Youth Movement wrote, "Not only because she is one of the many women in a similar situation - subjected to patriarchal male violence, blamed and abandoned by community, at the mercy of religious laws, without recourse to justice. She is also one the many women who refused to submit to this violence and stood up to defend herself."
The execution of a young woman, a victim of gender based violence, the group wrote, "is a regress in the eyes of international law and an irreparable damage for Sudan's and perhaps more broadly Africa's international reputation."
Sudan is marked 165 out of 188 in the United Nations Development Programme's Gender Development Index, which quantifies gender inequality using income levels, political representation, reproductive health, maternal mortality rates and other measures.
One in three Sudanese women are married before the age of 18, Reuters reported, citing the United Nations.
Magango, of Amnesty International, said that by applying the "cruel" death penalty to a rape victim, Sudanese authorities failed to acknowledge the violence Hussein endured.
"The Sudanese authorities must quash this grossly unfair sentence and ensure that Noura gets a fair retrial that takes into account her mitigating circumstances," Magango wrote.
"Noura Hussein's life-long wish was to become a teacher but she ended up being forced to marry an abusive man who raped and brutalized her," Magango added. "Now she has been slapped with a death sentence."