Sudan Jails Artists For Gender-mixed Theater Workshop, Echoing Bashir-era Repression

NABA MOHIEDDIN AND MAX BEARAK

KHARTOUM, Sudan — A Sudanese court convicted six artists of “public nuisance” and sentenced them to two months in jail on Thursday for mixing with members of the opposite sex, bringing the total number charged to 11 after a similar ruling last week.

The group was prosecuted after holding a mixed-gender theater workshop last month, under laws often abused by the autocratic regime of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, which was deposed in a popular uprising last year. They were also fined around $90 each.

Among those sentenced to jail was Hajooj Kuka, 44, who just this year was inducted as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars.

The award-winning filmmaker was co-producing a play that used experimental dance to reenact the break up of a sit-in protest by security forces last June, which killed more than 100 and