A Sudanese journalist and outspoken campaigner for women’s rights could face the death penalty after allegations including prostitution and crimes against the state were made against her.

Wini Omer appeared before a public order court on Tuesday, where she faces charges of prostitution and violating public morals. At the hearing, she was told that she could also face further charges of spying against the government and communications against the state.

Omer and her supporters say she is being targeted because of her human rights work.

Omer told the Guardian: “It’s an attempt to send a message to the other activists, to say: ‘You should be mindful and careful and not to cross the boundaries, we are watching you. And by the law we can arrest you.’ They are trying to make us behave.”

Omer, a recent Mandela Washington fellow, was arrested in February after officers burst into a meeting between her, a woman and two men. She was detained for five days, her laptop was confiscated and she was later banned from leaving the country.

Almost any mixed social gathering is prohibited under Sudan’s public order act, a wide-ranging piece of legislation that places restrictions on what women can do and wear. It is enforced by public order police and charges are heard in public order courts. 

Omer was arrested in December for being indecently dressed while wearing a skirt, blouse and scarf. She was also accused of walking in an indecent manner. The case was later thrown out.

In 2016, more than 15,000 women were sentenced to flogging as a result of prosecutions brought under the public order, according to the No to Women’s Oppression Initiative, a campaign group in Sudan.

Walaa Isam, a social activist in Sudan and friend of Omer, said the public order act is used arbitrarily against women. “[It is used] especially among very poor women, the women who sell tea on the street, beggars and migrant women. They take you to court and then you have to pay a fine, you are imprisoned and sometimes could be sentenced to flogging.” Women’s rights activists are also targeted, she added. 

Allegations of crimes against the state have not been formally brought against Omer, but her lawyer, Ahmed Sibiar, said: “The National Intelligence and Security Service can use these accusations at any time and put them all in jail, including [Omer], for up to seven months just for the interrogation.”

Dr Ihsan Fagiri, who campaigns for No to Women’s Oppression, said she and other women, including Omer’s mother, were banned from attending Tuesday’s hearing because only men were allowed in the courtroom. “They put these laws just to prevent women from going out and participating in public life,” Fagiri said.

If found guilty, Omer could face the death penalty. Charges of prostitution could lead to a lengthy prison sentence. 

Omer has written about human rights issues in Sudan, and recently campaigned on behalf of the teenager Noura Hussein, who was sentenced to death for killing her husband as he tried to rape her. The sentence against Hussein was eventually overturned in an appeals court.

Omer said the court proceedings were deliberately slow.

“In Wini’s case, you have to ask who has reported her to the police? How come the police knew that she was working in that room together with male colleagues, and why were there so many police ready to break in and arrest her?” said Suad Abu Dayyeh, Middle East and North Africa expert for the women’s rights organisation Equality Now. “Was she being observed by people who don’t like the way she is working as a journalist, which is a very important job?”

The Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in the Middle East and North Africa has called for the charges against Omer to be dropped. 

It has also urged the Sudanese authorities to “cancel laws that are contradictory to the constitution and international and regional treaties and covenants”.

Omer’s arrest comes as the African Editors Forum warned of a wider crackdown on press freedom in Sudan. On Tuesday, the authorities confiscated print runs of the Al Jareeda newspaper for the third day, after it reported on the country’s bread and fuel shortages.

Press freedom is also threatened by new laws that would allow a statutory press council to ban a newspaper from publishing for 15 days without a court order.

Zeinab Mohammed Salih and Rebecca Ratcliffe

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