Tag: Nigeria

A Nigerian couple recently sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery were released on bail by a sharia court in order for the woman, Fatima Usman, to give birth to her child.

Usman and her lover, Ahmadu Ibrahim, were originally ordered to be imprisoned after being found guilty of committing adultery. But at their appeal hearing, a judge ruled that the wrong statute had been cited and changed the couple’s sentence to death by stoning.

Nigerian sharia courts have routinely delayed the carrying out of such sentences until the infants is born and weaned.

So far, none of the people sentenced to death in Nigeria has actually had that sentence carried out, but according to the BBC,

But defence lawyers are increasingly concerned that it is only a matter of time before on of the majority Muslim northern states decides to carry out such a sentence.

. . .

Nigeria’s central government has said it is opposed to such sentences being carried out, but says it has no powers to intervene in judgments handed down by Islamic courts in the north of the country.

Source:

Nigeria’s stoning couple freed. The BBC, August 22, 2002.

What if they held a beauty pageant and nobody came? That is the question organizers of Miss World, scheduled for November, are wondering as several contestants have announced they will boycott the contest due to the death sentences passed on women by host country Nigeria.

Contestants from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Kenya and Ivory Coast have already announced they will not show up at the event. Contestants from Canada, Italy and Sweden have said they will show up for the contest, but will highlight the plight of women who suffer under Islamic sharia law in parts of the country.

Nigeria is divided with Muslims in the North and Christians in the South. Most of the Muslim states have made Islamic law the official state law. As a result a number of young women have been sentenced to death for being pregnant outside of wedlock.

The death sentence imposed on Amina Lawal Kurami has garnered international attention to Nigeria. Kurami was found guilty of adultery after becoming pregnant outside of wedlock. She has been sentenced to being buried up to her neck and then stoned to death, although her sentence has been deferred until 2004 when her child will presumably be weaned.

Nigeria’s president and much of the national state apparatus opposes these sort of sentences and the validity of sharia law has been a hotly contested issue that pits the national government against states. In some cases, Muslim/Christian tensions have boiled over into riots and wholesale murder of one side or the other.

Ironically, the boycott by Miss World contestants would likely be welcome by many Nigerian Muslims. The Miss World contest was brought to Nigeria and endorsed largely by Christian government officials, including Nigeria’s president, and has been vehemently opposed by Muslim groups and parties which claim the pageant is an affront to decency and morality.

Sources:

Group Wants Miss World Beauty Pageant Cancelled. This Day (Lagos), August 22, 2002.

Miss Canada won’t boycott Nigeria pageant. Patrick Brethour, Reuters, October 15, 2002.

An Islamic court in the Nigerian state of Katsina this month postponed the execution by stoning of Amina Lawal, 30, until at least January 2004.

Lawal was convicted of adultery after she gave birth to a baby girl more than nine months after divorcing her husband. Under the extremist Islamist law embrace by some states in Nigeria, that is prima facie evidence of adultery which is punishable by death.

The sentence was delayed to allow Lawal to finish weaning her baby, at which time the court will again take up her case. Nigeria’s national government, however, has said such punishments are unconstitutional and it is unclear what status the Islamic laws will have when 2004 comes around.

As is common with these cases, the man that Lawal claimed was the father was acquitted of an adultery charge due to lack of evidence. Under this legal system, evidence of adultery generally requires testimony in open court from at least three eye witnesses who are also male Muslims.

Sources:

Islamic court delays execution. Glenn McKenzie, Associated Press, June 3, 2002.

Mother faces stoning
. Samson Mulugeta, Bradenton Herald, May 1, 2002.

A sharia appeals court recently overturned the death sentence of Safiya Husaini, 35, who had been ordered stoned to death after being convicted of adultery. Safiya’s case had become a worldwide cause and an embarrassment to Nigeria’s government.

The sharia court ruled that the adultery in question took place before the sharia law had been passed, and so the crime was beyond the court’s jurisdiction.

The issue is not likely to go away, however, even though Nigeria’s justice minister, Godwin Agabi, recently ordered sharia state courts to rewrite their rules to bring them in harmony with Nigeria’s national criminal statutes. But, in fact, just as the decision to throw out Safiya’s conviction was announced, it was revealed that another divorced woman had been sentenced to death after being convicted of adultery by an Islamic court.

Nigeria is deeply divided between Muslims and Christians. The imposition of sharia law in parts of Nigeria have led to riots that have left thousands of people dead.

Muslims have had enough influence to impose sharia courts on 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states. The Nigerian justice minister insisted that it is illegal for sharia courts to impose harsher sentences on Muslims than the national law allowed for.

Nigeria will hold elections in early 2003, however, and the issue of Islamic law will be a major issue in those elections.

Sources:

Woman spared Nigeria stoning death. CNN, March 25, 2002.

Sharia court frees Nigerian woman. The BBC, March 25, 2002.

A woman, Safiya Hussaini, was recently sentenced to death in the Nigerian state of Sokoto — which is one of a growing number of Nigerian states to adopt an Islamic law code. Here crime? She had premarital sex. Not surprisingly, Hussaini alleged sexual partner was acquitted by the same court.

Last year, a teenaged girl in Nigeria was sentenced to 180 lashes for having sex. The sentence was later reduced to a “mere” 100 lashes which were administered in January 2001.

Hussaini appealed her conviction, and it has been temporarily stayed. She claims that the man who was acquitted of having sex with her in fact repeatedly. Under the strict Islamic law in place in Sokoto, since Hussaini was the only witness to the alleged crime, her testimony was essentially meaningless.

Sources:

Woman’s stoning delayed by Sharia Court. European Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, December 4, 2001.