A young Sudanese woman convicted of adultery has been sentenced to death by stoning, an international rights group says, in a rare case under Sudan’s Islamist regime. New York-based Human Rights Watch said the case of Intisar Sharif Abdallah “presents numerous grave violations of domestic and international law”.
In a statement late Thursday it said Abdallah, who is believed to be under the age of 18, was sentenced by a judge in the Khartoum area in April and is being held in prison with her baby. Another watchdog, Amnesty International, gave her age as 20 and said she was sentenced on May 13.
The case has received almost no coverage in Sudanese media.
Abdallah was sentenced under a penal code provision which calls for execution by stoning for married adulterers, while unmarried culprits are whipped, Human Rights Watch said. It added that Sudan is one of only seven countries that have death by stoning as a punishment.
“Sudanese judges have sentenced several women to death by stoning in recent years, but courts have overturned all the sentences on appeal,” an HRW statement said.
“The vast majority of adultery cases and stoning sentences have been imposed on women, pointing to the disproportionate and unequal application of this law.”
