Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese journalist and former United Nations staff member, has staged a protest simply by wearing pants in Sudan's capital city, Khartoum.  Hussein began her protest by donning a pair of pants and sitting at an outdoor café last July.  She risked jail time, and a potential punishment of 40 lashes with a plastic whip.  When she appeared before the judge (still wearing the pants which got her arrested) the judge convicted her of public indecency, and ordered her to pay a $200 fine.

Sudan is governed by the notoriously repressive Sharia law, which requires women to "dress modestly."  However, nowhere in the legal code are pants specifically prohibited.  It seems that the pants thing is just something that everyone under Islamic law understands to be true, without ever having been codified.

Hussein refused to pay the fine.  "If I paid, it would mean I'd lost the battle," she said.  Hussein later added, "What passage in the Quran says women can't wear pants?"  Hussein's indecency charge, for a pair of baggy dark green slacks that pool at her feet without even revealing her ankles, seems ludicrous to the rest of the world.  

The judge sentenced her to spend a month in prison.  Hussein has sworn to appeal the conviction.  A protest gathered outside the court house, including diplomats from the British, French, Canadian, Swedish, and Dutch embassies.  Many female protestors arrived wearing pants, and over 40 of them were arrested by riot police and temporarily detained until the trial was over, at which point they were released.  (Why?)  

Hussein was taken to jail last night.  Her lawyers "said that in the coming days a committee formed for her defense might pay the fine and free her."  If this happens, I hope that she puts on her green pants again and gets right back out there to be arrested again.

Sharia law is "the most widely used religious law," and lays out the boundaries for every aspect of life, both public and private.  Aside from forbidding women to "dress immodestly" (although again, Sharia law does not explicitly prohibit pants), it explicitly states that a woman is worth half what a man is worth under its concept of "blood money."  
There have been several instances across the world where teenage female rape victims have been publicly stoned, some of them to death.  According to some interpretations of Sharia law, a woman must provide up to four male witnesses who will testify that she was rape.  Otherwise, she can charged with fornication and/or adultery.  In other words, get raped: go to jail.  Maybe killed.

Sharia law is also one of the world's most homophobic, to such an extent that being gay under Sharia law is now considered legal grounds for asylum in Europe and the United States.  Citizens found to be gay can be subject to 100 lashes with a whip at a minimum, public stoning for unmarried women found engaging in homosexual acts, and even execution in certain cases.

Between releasing the protestors at the court house and reducing her sentence from 40 lashes to $200, Sudan's legal system seems to be bowing to public pressure.  Which is pretty odd, considering that Sudan has been busy slaughtering, looting, and torturing a huge percentage of its population in Darfur since 2003.  Why give up in the face of international criticism now?