Amina Lawal Kurami | |
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Amina Lawal Kurami (born 1972) is a Nigerian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery and for conceiving a child out of wedlock. Lawal was sentenced by an Islamic Sharia court in Funtua, in the northern state of Katsina, in Nigeria, on 22 March 2002. The person she identified as the father of the child, Yahayya Muhammad Kurami, was acquitted of the accusation of zinā. Although Kurami was excused because he took an oath by the Holy Qur’an, this was not an option for Lawal due to the presence of her child, which is proof in the Mālikī school. [1]
Lawal's conviction sparked an international controversy. It was overturned by a Sharia which ruled that it violated Islamic law, and she later remarried. [2] [3] [4]
Lawal was the second Nigerian woman condemned to death by stoning for engaging in sex before marriage. The first woman, Safiya Hussaini, had her sentence overturned in March 2002 on her first appeal. Sharia law was established in northern Nigeria's mostly Muslim state Zamfara in 2000 and has since spread to at least twelve other states. [5] [6] [7] [8]
An appeal was put in motion and on 25 September 2003 Lawal's sentence of death by stoning for adultery was overturned by a five-judge panel of Katsina State Sharia Court of Appeal. Four of the five judges ruled that the conviction violated Islamic law on a number of points, which included: the defendant's right to proper legal defence was not ensured, the circumstantial evidence of her pregnancy was not sufficient, the confession of the accused was not valid, and only one instead of the required three judges was present at the time of conviction. [2] [3] [5]
Baobab for Women's Human Rights, an NGO based in Nigeria, took up her case which was argued by Nigerian lawyers trained in both secular and Sharia law. Lawal's lawyers included Hauwa Ibrahim, a prominent human rights lawyer known for her pro bono work for people condemned under Sharia law. In their successful defence of Amina Lawal, lawyers used the notion of "extended pregnancy" (dormant foetus), arguing that under Sharia law, a five-year interval is possible between human conception and birth; [9] two years prior to the date of her daughter's birth, she was still married to her husband. [8] [3]
The affair exposed civil and religious tensions between the Christian and Muslim regions of Nigeria. The sentence also caused widespread outrage in the West, and a number of campaigns were launched to persuade the Nigerian government to overturn the sentence. Several contestants of the Miss World beauty contest, to be held in Nigeria in 2002, pulled out of the contest to protest against Amina Lawal's treatment. Miss Norway condemned the sentence and called it “utterly revolting” and stated she would not attend until Lawal was acquitted. Miss Ivory Coast said, “[I am] not going to Nigeria, and I hope my decision will help save Amina Lawal.” Miss Togo added, “Stoning this woman is not right. All of society should rise up to end this sort of practice.” Several other beauty queens representing different countries also criticised the sentence and refused to compete. [10] The Oprah Winfrey Show had a special report on Amina Lawal and encouraged viewers to send protest e-mails to the Nigerian Ambassador to the United States: over 1.2 million e-mails ensued.
Amnesty International had a solid response to the sentencing because Nigeria is a signatory of the legally binding international human rights Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The organization also implored Nigeria to bring Sharia law in line with the 1999 Nigerian Constitution. However, Amnesty was unaware that this debate already existed in the religiously separated Nigeria. [1]
United States President Bill Clinton pleaded to the Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, “I hope and pray that the legal system will find a way to pardon a young woman convicted to death for bearing a child out of wedlock.” Consequently, Clinton was pleading to the wrong audience as President Obasanjo is a Christian from the south of Nigeria and most likely opposes this sentencing more vehemently. Furthermore, Muslims are the only ones subject to Sharia law, so President Obasanjo has no say in the matter and has no power over its outcome. [1]
A 2002 Petition called "save Amina" gathered a few thousand signatures then a 2003 e-communication with the subject line "“Please Stop the International Amina Lawal Protest Letter Campaigns" signed by Ayesha Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould who represented two Nigerian Human Rights organizations said the "save Amina" petition had some inaccuracies including a false assertion that execution of the sentence was imminent. They further contested that "There is an unbecoming arrogance in assuming that international human rights organizations or others always know better than those directly involved, and therefore can take actions that fly in the face of their express wishes". [11] [12]
In May 2003, the official response of the Embassy of Nigeria in the Netherlands to the then Sharia-based trial of the State of Katsina in Nigeria, was that no court had given a stoning order on Lawal. They claimed the reports were "unfounded and malicious" and were "calculated to ridicule the Nigerian judicial system and the country's image before the international community." They claimed no knowledge of such a case. [13]
Ambassador A.A. Agada of the Embassy of Nigeria in Washington D.C., U.S., was more forthcoming in recognizing the case of Lawal and stated on 29 August 2003: "the Embassy wishes to inform that Malama Amina Lawal has three levels of courts of appeal before the final determination of her case. The Embassy hereby assures the general public that Malama Lawal's right to a fair hearing under the Nigerian Constitution is guaranteed. Therefore due appellate processes will be followed to ensure the rule of law". [14]
As noted in the Author Q&A at the end of Will Ferguson's novel 419, the fictional character Amina—a young pregnant woman fleeing the Sharia states of northern Nigeria on foot—was based on Amina Lawal.
Alison M. Jaggar, an American philosopher, wrote an article in 2005 pertaining to this case, titled "Saving Amina".
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)| International | |
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The Hudud Ordinances are laws in Pakistan enacted in 1979 as part of the Islamization of Pakistan by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the sixth president of Pakistan. It replaced parts of the British-era Pakistan Penal Code, adding new criminal offences of adultery and fornication, and new punishments of whipping, amputation, and stoning to death. After much controversy and criticism parts of the law were extensively revised in 2006 by the Women's Protection Bill.
Zināʾ (زِنَاء) or zinā is an Islamic legal term referring to unlawful sexual intercourse. According to traditional jurisprudence, zina can include adultery, fornication, prostitution, sodomy, incest, and bestiality. Zina must be proved by testimony of four Muslim eyewitnesses to the actual act of penetration, confession repeated four times and not retracted later. The offenders must have acted of their own free will. Rapists could be prosecuted under different legal categories which used normal evidentiary rules. Making an accusation of zina without presenting the required eyewitnesses is called qadhf (القذف), which is itself a hudud offense.
Hudud is an Arabic word meaning "borders, boundaries, limits". In the religion of Islam, it refers to punishments that under Islamic law (sharīʿah) are believed to be mandated and fixed by God, i.e. prescribed punishments, as opposed to Ta'zeer. These punishments were applied in pre-modern Islam, and their use in some modern states has been a source of controversy.
Rajm in Islam refers to the Hudud punishment wherein an organized group throws stones at a convicted individual until that person dies. Under some versions of Islamic law (Sharia), it is the prescribed punishment in cases of adultery committed by a married person which requires either a confession from either the adulterer or adulteress, or producing four witnesses of sexual penetration.
Hauwa Ibrahim is a Nigerian human rights lawyer who won the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 2005.
Qisas or Qiṣāṣ is an Islamic term interpreted to mean "retaliation in kind", "eye for an eye", or retributive justice.
Miss World 2002, the 52nd edition of the Miss World pageant, was held on 7 December 2002 at the Alexandra Palace in London, United Kingdom. It was initially intended to be staged in Abuja, but due to religious riots in the nearby city of Kaduna the pageant was relocated to London.
Safiya Hussaini Tungar Tudu is a Nigerian woman condemned to death for adultery in 2002. She gave birth to a child as a single woman in Sokoto, a Nigerian state under Sharia law. She was sentenced to be stoned, but was acquitted of all charges in March 2002 after a retrial.
Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment where a group throws stones at a person until the subject dies from blunt trauma. It has been attested as a form of punishment for grave misdeeds since ancient times.
In Nigeria, Sharia has been instituted as a main body of civil and criminal law in twelve Muslim-majority states since 1999, when then-Zamfara State governor Ahmad Sani Yerima began the push for the institution of Sharia at the state level of government. A "declaration of full Sharia law" was made in the twelve states in that year, and the states created Islamic legal institutions such as a Sharia Commission, and Zakat Commission, and a hisbah. According to some critics, the adoption of Sharia law violates Article 10 of the Nigerian constitution guaranteeing religious freedom.
The Federal Republic of Nigeria operates two court systems. Both systems can punish blasphemy. The Constitution provides a customary (irreligious) system and a system that incorporates Sharia. The customary system prohibits blasphemy by section 204 of Nigeria's Criminal Code.
Kanu Godwin Agabi, SAN, is a Nigerian lawyer and politician who was a Senator, and was twice Attorney General and Minister of Justice of the federation during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo.
Religion in Katsina State of Nigeria is mainly Islam. The Sharia is valid in the entire state. Amina Lawal was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery in 2002, but was freed in 2004.
The legal system of Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia, Islamic law derived from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The sources of Sharia also include Islamic scholarly consensus developed after Muhammad's death. Its interpretation by judges in Saudi Arabia is influenced by the medieval texts of the literalist Hanbali school of Fiqh. Uniquely in the Muslim world, Sharia has been adopted by Saudi Arabia in an uncodified form. This, and the lack of judicial precedent, has resulted in considerable uncertainty in the scope and content of the country's laws. The government therefore announced its intention to codify Sharia in 2010, and, in 2018, a sourcebook of legal principles and precedents was published by the Saudi government. Sharia has also been supplemented by regulations issued by royal decree covering modern issues such as intellectual property and corporate law. Nevertheless, Sharia remains the primary source of law, especially in areas such as criminal, family, commercial and contract law, and the Qur'an and the Sunnah are declared to be the country's constitution. In the areas of land and energy law the extensive proprietorial rights of the Saudi state constitute a significant feature.
Sharia means Islamic law based on Islamic concepts based from Quran and Hadith. Since the early Islamic states of the eighth and ninth centuries, Sharia always existed alongside other normative systems.
The judiciary of Saudi Arabia is a branch of the government of Saudi Arabia that interprets and applies the laws of Saudi Arabia. The legal system is based on the Islamic code of Sharia, with its judges and lawyers forming part of the country's religious leadership or ulama. There are also non-Sharia government tribunals which handle disputes relating to specific royal decrees. Final appeal from both Sharia courts and government tribunals is to the King of Saudi Arabia and all courts and tribunals follow Sharia rules of evidence and procedure.
The Miss World riots were a series of religiously motivated riots in the Nigerian city of Kaduna in November 2002, resulting in the deaths of more than 200 people. The Miss World beauty pageant, which was controversial in Nigeria, was relocated to London after bloody clashes between Muslims and Christians, caused by what some Muslims deemed to be a "blasphemous" article in the Christian newspaper ThisDay about the event. The Miss World riots were part of the Sharia conflict in Nigeria, that started in 1999 when several predominantly Islamic states in Northern Nigeria decided to introduce Sharia law.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Northern Nigeria face severe challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Federal law prohibits all forms of homosexual activities and prescribes up to 14 years imprisonment for those found culpable. While the Maliki form of Shari'a law applied in 12 states have lesser penalty for unmarried persons, it prescribes the death penalty for married individuals.
Ayesha Imam is a Nigerian born human rights activist. She is a former Chief of the Culture, Gender and Human Rights department of the United Nations Population Fund and a founding member and pioneer national coordinating secretary of Women in Nigeria. She late became the coordinator of a BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights, a human rights advocacy group. From April 2017 to March 2023, she served as Chair of the Board of Directors of Greenpeace International.
Saudatu Mahdi is a Nigerian women's rights advocate. She is the Secretary General of Women's Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA). She has published over 20 books focusing on violence against women, women’s rights, Shari’a and women and women in education. Mahdi led the team that fought and won the acquittal for a Nigerian woman who was sentenced to death by hanging because she had a child out of wedlock.
