(CNN) -- When a police officer demanded that she cover her hair, Amira Osman Hamed simply refused. "I'm Muslim, and I'm not going to cover my head," she declared. For that, the 35-year-old Sudanese engineer was arrested last August and charged with "indecent dress." Now Hamed faces a possible sentence of 40 lashes if a court convicts her when she faces the judge on Monday. Still, she refuses to wear a headscarf. Hamed's determination to challenge arbitrary rules restricting women's freedom is part of a wave of energy pushing against those limits, notably (but not exclusively) in Muslim countries. In Muslim-majority states in Africa, South Asia, the Persian Gulf and elsewhere, women are relentlessly demanding more equal treatment.
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Frida Ghitis: Sudanese woman faces flogging for refusing to wear a headscarf
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Others flogged for wearing slacks, or riding in car with man who is not relation
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Ghitis: Muslim women fighting back, refusing to comply, driving cars in Saudi Arabia
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Ghitis: Girls like Malala aren't products of West; they are fighting back on their own
And that change, a call for human rights for all -- including for women -- is not an invention of the @placeholder.