Merits 29. Article 5 of the African Charter reads: âEvery individual shall have the right to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition of his legal status. All forms of exploitation and degradation of man, particularly slavery, slave trade, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment shall be prohibitedâ. 30. [The] Complainant alleges that eight of the students of the Ahlia University were arrested and convicted by a public order court for acts that violated the âpublic orderâ. He states that they were all sentenced to fines and between 25 and 40 lashes, the lashes were carried out in public on the bare backs of the women using a wire and plastic whip that leaves permanent scares on the women. 31. He points out that the instrument used to inflict the lashes was not clean and no doctor was present to supervise the execution of punishment and that the punishment therefore, could have resulted in severe infections to the victims. 32. [The] Complainant alleges that the punishment of lashings are disproportionate and humiliating because they require a girl to submit to baring her back in public and to the infliction of physical harm which is contrary to the high degree of respect accorded to females in Sudanese society. 33. The Respondent State argues that the court found the accused guilty and decided to have them flogged with either a fine of fifty thousand Sudanese pounds each, or one (1) month imprisonment. 34. The Respondent State informed the African Commission that the lashings were justified because the authors of the petition committed acts found to be criminal according to the laws in force in the country. 35. There is little or no dispute between the Complainant and the Government of Sudan concerning the facts recounted above. The only dispute that arises is to whether or not the lashings for the acts committed in this instance violate the prohibition of Article 5 as being cruel, inhumane, or degrading punishment. 36. Article 5 of the [African] Charter prohibits not only cruel but also inhuman and degrading treatment. This includes not only actions which cause serious physical or psychological suffering, but which humiliate or force the individual against his will or conscience. 37. While ultimately whether an act constitutes inhuman degrading treatment or punishment depends on the circumstances of the case. The African Commission has stated that the prohibition of torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment is to be interpreted as widely as possible to encompass the widest possible array of physical and mental abuses (see communication 225/98 Huri-Laws/Nigeria). 38. The European Court of Human Rights in Ty[r]er v. United Kingdom, 1 applying Article 3 × Article 3 Prohibition of torture No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 213 U.N.T.S. 221, entered into force 3rd February 1953, that is substantially similar prohibition of cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment as Article 5 of the [African] Charter, has similarly held that even lashings that were carried out in private, with appropriate medical supervision, under strictly hygienic conditions, and only after the exhaustion of appeal rights violated the rights of the victim. The Court stated that: âthe very nature of judicial corporal punishment is that it involves one human being inflicting physical violence on another human being. Furthermore, it is institutionalised violence that is in the present case violence permitted by law, ordered by the judicial authorities of the State and carried out by the police authorities of the State. Thus, although the applicant did not suffer any severe or long lasting physical effects, his punishment whereby he was treated as an object in the power of authorities, constituted an assault on precisely that which it is one of the main purposes of Article 3 to protect, namely a person dignity and physical integrity. Neither can it be excluded that the punishment may have had adverse psychological effectsâ. 39. The Complainant alleges that the punishment meted out was grossly disproportionate, as the acts for which the students were punished were minor offences, which ordinarily would not have attracted such punishments. 40. The Complainant submits that according to Islamic law the penalty of lashings may be meted out for some serious crimes. For example, hadd offenses may be punished with lashes under Shariâa because they are considered grave offences2 and strict requirements of proof apply. Minor offences, however, cannot be punished as hadd because the Qurâan does not expressly prohibit them with a prescribed penalty. The acts committed by the students were minor acts of friendship between boys and girls at a 3