Disturbing footage showing a woman being flogged repeatedly by a laughing policemen in Sudan has sparked outrage after it was posted on the internet, reports Daily Mail, London.
The YouTube video from Sudan shows an unidentified woman in a long black dress and headscarf being ordered to sit down before a uniformed police officer starts whipping her.
Howling in pain she screams 'Enough, enough' and 'I want my mum'.A second officer - who laughs when he realises he is being filmed - later joins in with the cruel punishment
The woman's crime is not known but there are suggestions circulating on the web that it could be for wearing trousers.
Despite being surrounded by police officers and dozens of bystanders, no-one intervenes and the violence lasts a minute and a half.
During her ordeal one of the policeman can be heard telling the woman she will be jailed for two years if she does not accept the 53 lashings.
The woman cries out repeatedly for her mother and even tries to grab one of the whips to stop the persistent beating.
Flogging is fairly common in northern Sudan but the violence in this particular video has sparked outrage and Sudan's judiciary has now launched an investigation into the incident.
The video led to 50 women sitting down outside the justice ministry in Sudan on Tuesday in protest against laws which they say humiliate women. Dozens were arrested.
The women held banners before being surrounded by riot police telling them to move.
In 2009 Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese journalist, was sentenced to 40 lashes for appearing in public wearing trousers. Under a storm of international criticism, she was released with a fine
Three plain-clothed security men threw the BBC correspondent to the ground, confiscating his equipment.All the women were arrested and taken to a nearby police station.
Their lawyers were prevented from entering, but senior opposition politicians were allowed to go inside.The women said they had tried to get permission for the protest but had been refused. The police declined to comment.
'The authorities here take the law into their own hands. No one knows what happens inside these police stations,' said one of their lawyers, Mona el-Tijani.
'This video was just one example of what happens all the time.'
The video follows last year's famous case of Lubna Hussein, the UN worker who was arrested with 12 other women for wearing trousers at a party in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
At the time most of the women accepted the punishment of 10 lashes but she refused and challenged the verdict in court
.She was ultimately found guilty but was given a fine rather than being whipped.Mike Blakemore from Amnesty International said: 'This horrendous footage provides a chilling reminder that flogging continues to be used as a form of punishment in Sudan.
He said: 'It is a practice which particularly affects women and Amnesty International is calling for an immediate end to this brutal practice.'The law which enables flogging to persist is discriminatory and inhumane.
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