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An Appeal from Rationalist International ! |
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Amina Lawal Kurami could become the first person to be executed by stoning since the northern states of Nigeria have implemented Sharia (Islamic law). The long awaited decision of the Islamic high court in Funtuas, Katsina state, shocked Nigeria�s growing human rights movement and people around the world. The court confirmed the barbarian judgment imposed upon the unwed mother by a Sharia court in Bakori in March 2002 on charges of adultery. This is the second judgment of its kind. The first woman sentenced to death by stoning was Safiyatu Husseini Tunga-Tuda, condemned in October 2001. Under the pressure of worldwide protest, the Islamic appeal court in Sokoto acquitted Safiyatu in March 2002 [we reported in Bulletin # 88 and Bulletin # 93]. There had been the expectation that the appeal court, too, would acquit Amina Lawal. The cases are very similar. Both Safiyatu (35) and Amina (30) were divorced by their former husbands and got pregnant out of wedlock. Both did not understand the implications of the drastic change of the legal system, which had taken place, and had no lawyer, when they admitted intimate relations outside marriage to the authorities. In both cases their confession was reason enough for the Sharia courts to impose the highest possible punishment on them, while the fathers of their babies escaped for lack of evidence. Under Sharia rules of proof, a man can only be convicted of adultery if there are four male witnesses for the act, while an unmarried woman can be condemned simply for becoming pregnant. The acquittal by the appeal court in Safiyatu Husseini�s case was based on three reasons. First, the child had been conceived before Sharia was implemented in Sokoto state and therefore Islamic law was not applicable. Second, the accused had not been aware of the dire consequences of her confession, and third, she did not have a lawyer. Safiyatu was given opportunity by the appeal court to modify her statement and presented the astonishing � though under Islamic law officially acceptable � explanation that the baby was the child of her former husband only, which had been �sleeping� in her for two years after divorce. Amina Lawal�s team of lawyers from the capital Abuja, who have meantime been organized by the Women�s Rights Advance and Protection Alternative, presented the same arguments, however without success. Amina had told the authorities in January that her then new-born daughter Wasilia was an offspring of her 11-moths-lasting intimate relation with her boy friend Yahaya Mahmud, who wanted to marry her. This confession remained the base of her conviction. The court was unimpressed by any protest. �Based on proofs derived through our investigations and through Islamic books I, Aliyu Abdullahi, and my three assistants hereby uphold your conviction of death by stoning as prescribed by the Sharia. This judgment will be carried out as soon as your baby is weaned�, declared the presiding judge. The ruling was answered with cheering and cries of �God is great!� from the public gallery of the packed courtroom. Meantime an appeal has lodged with the higher court, informed the lawyers. *** Nigeria is the most populous state of Africa. Half of its 120 million people are Muslims, half Christians. In 2000, the states of the predominantly Muslim north of the country started to implement Sharia. This triggered violent communal clashes, in which during the past three years more than 3000 people were killed. There are 12 Sharia states now, whose Muslim population is forced under the jurisdiction of religious penal courts, imposing barbarian punishments on them. Several men and young boys have been convicted to amputation of limbs for petty thefts. Some amputations have been already executed. A teenage girl, who became pregnant after being raped by three men, was punished for her �crime� with hundred public lashes last year. The list of alleged �adulterers�, being sentenced to death by stoning, is growing. So far, no execution by stoning has taken place. Yunusa Ratin Chiyawa in Bauchi state, convicted to death by stoning in June for having a relation with a married woman, is the first man to face this punishment. The judgment was based on his confession; he had no lawyer. The woman was let free, as she claimed Yunusa had cast a spell on her. Amnesty International reported that the Bauchi state representative of the federal justice ministry tried to get the case transferred from the Sharia court to the high court of state, where there is no death penalty for adultery, but the Sharia court refused the transfer. It is not known if and how the dispute about competence between religious and state court has been solved and what is the further fate of the convicted. Fatima Usman, divorced mother of 2 children, together with her boy friend Ahmadu Ibrahim, have been sentenced to death by stoning by an upper Sharia court in Niger state in August. The couple had been convicted for extra marital relations to 5 years jail in May. The upper court imposed the death sentence, after Fatima�s father lodged a complaint that the jail term was too mild a punishment. Their lawyer has filed an appeal. The federal government of Nigeria under President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian, did not appreciate the implementation of Sharia in the northern states, but did not stop it either. In March 2002, alarmed by an international outcry against the death sentence for Satiyatu Husseini, the government made a half-hearted move to ban Islamic law. Justice Minister Kanu Agabi informed the 12 states concerned that Sharia was inhuman and violated the Nigerian constitution, but no further steps were taken. In fact, Sharia violates not only the Nigerian constitution, but also several international human rights legal instruments, signed and ratified by Nigeria. The federal government has therefore nothing less than the duty to ban Sharia in order to uphold the values and principles enshrined in the constitution as well as to guarantee the implementation of international human rights acts. But it seems to prefer a comfortable policy of non-interference. A speaker of the governor of Katsina state made it clear to the media that there would be no interference whatsoever in the case of Amina Lawall. President Obasanjo is quoted as saying: �I don�t think what is going on will lead to her death. Indeed, if it does, which I very much doubt, I will weep for myself, I will weep for Amina and I will weep for Nigeria.� President Obasanjo has to be politely told that the civilized world expects more from him than tears: We expect him to uphold law and order and the constitution of his country and to respect international human rights standards. We expect him therefore to ban Sharia and stop the execution of cruel and inhuman punishments like flogging and amputations with immediate effect. We expect him to guarantee for the life of Amina Lawal and all others currently sentenced to death under the Islamic law. We expect him to prevent that Nigeria goes Taliban! Please write to President Obasanjo: His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo, President of the Republic Nigeria e-mail: [email protected] Postal address: The Presidency, Federal Secretariat, Phase II, Shehu Shagari Way, Abuja, Nigeria And please send a copy of your letter to Rationalist International at the following address: |
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