Get the Genesis
of Eden AV-CD by secure
internet order >> CLICK_HERE
Windows / Mac Compatible. Includes live video seminars, enchanting renewal songs and a thousand page illustrated codex.
Get the Genesis
of Eden AV-CD by secure
internet order >> CLICK_HERE
Windows / Mac Compatible. Includes
live video seminars, enchanting renewal songs and a thousand page
illustrated codex.
Return to Genesis of Eden?
Monday, 25 March, 2002, 13:36 GMT Sharia court frees Nigerian woman An international campaign backed Safiya (bottom right) A Sharia court in Nigeria has upheld the appeal of a Muslim woman who had been convicted of adultery under Islamic law and sentenced to death by stoning.
Safiya Husaini won her case after the court in the northern town of Sokoto said the original ruling was unsound.
But as the verdict was announced, it emerged that a second woman has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery.
A Sharia court at Bakori in Katsina State sentenced Amina Lawal to die after she confessed to having had a child while divorced.
International attention
In the courtroom in Sokoto, Safiya, smiling broadly, was surrounded by the world's media as she held her one-year-old daughter in her arms.
It was the conception of Safiya's child out of wedlock that had been proof enough at the first trial of her adultery.
Click here for a map of Sharia states
But in Monday's ruling, judge Mohammed Tambari-Uthman said that because the alleged act had taken place before adultery became a criminal offence under Islamic law, her case should be dismissed.
"The first court... that convicted her did not follow the appropriate procedure. The police report also did not give all the necessary information related to the offence," he said.
The BBC Lagos correspondent Dan Isaacs says the ruling will be welcomed by human rights groups around the world.
Judge
Eye-witnesses
Anti-adultery laws, however, remain on the statute books in 12 northern Nigerian states, which have reintroduced Sharia law in the past two years.
Under Islamic law as practised in northern Nigeria, pregnancy outside marriage is sufficient evidence to convict a woman.
In contrast, four eye-witnesses are required for a man to be found guilty of adultery.
The man named by Ms Lawal as the father of her baby girl admitted they had a relationship but denied having had sex with her.
Charges against him were dropped after no witnesses came forward.
Ms Lawal now has 30 days to appeal against the sentence or she faces being stoned in eight months' time - when she has finished breast-feeding her daughter.
Politicians
Federal Justice Minister Kanu Agabi last week made public a letter he had written to the governors of the northern states, advising them to "take measures to amend or modify the jurisdiction of the courts imposing these punishments".
He said Muslims should not be subjected to more severe punishments than other Nigerians.
He added that he was receiving hundreds of letters every day, protesting against the discriminatory punishments imposed by some Sharia courts.
Under Sharia law, a few convicted thieves have had their hands amputated, while those found guilty of drinking alcohol have been flogged in public.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo - himself a devout Christian - had personally intervened in the case of Safiya Husaini, calling for her acquittal.
The reintroduction of Sharia has sparked religious riots between Muslims and Christians in many states, leaving thousands of people dead.
Some analysts feel the issue is being exploited by politicians ahead of general elections due early next year.
Wednesday, 5 December, 2001, 18:33
GMT Living on Nigeria's death row Safiyatu says her daughter was
the result of rape
By Dan Isaacs in Nigeria
In the northern Nigerian state of Sokoto, a woman is awaiting the outcome of an appeal against a conviction for adultery by an Islamic, or Sharia, court.
If the appeal fails, Safiyatu Huseini will be stoned to death.
Under a revised Sharia criminal code recently introduced in the mainly Muslim states of northern Nigeria, the punishments of amputation for theft, stoning for adultery and flogging for the drinking of alcohol are all now on the statute books.
Although sentenced to death, Safiyatu Huseini is not in custody. She is living with her family in the small village of Tungar Tudu, 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the state capital, Sokoto.
In a small hut, sitting next to her blind father, she tells her story. She holds a little girl in her arms.
Almost a year old now, Adama was conceived as a result of the allegedly adulterous relationship.
Obligations
This is very much a village dispute. The man, Yakubu Abubakar, already married with two wives, was called in to Safiyatu's family house to discuss the relationship.
He was asked by Safiyatu's father whether he was prepared to marry her, or at the very least pay for the upkeep of the child.
According to Safiyatu, in order to escape his obligations, the man took the matter to the police, and ultimately to the courts.
Safiyatu now claims that she was raped. It is the basis of her appeal against the death sentence.
The man she names as responsible was also charged with adultery but he was acquitted by the same Sharia court that convicted Safiyatu.
A confession of adultery that he made to her family, in the presence of two policemen, was retracted in court.
He even told the judge he had never met Safiyatu, despite coming from the same village.
Under Islamic law, if a man withdraws his confession, he must be acquitted, unless four men can be made to testify that they witnessed the adulterous act.
No confidence
For a woman, the burden of proof is simpler.
The only evidence required, in the version of Sharia law adopted in Sokoto state, is that the women has become pregnant outside marriage.
If the women was considered a virgin before the relationship, the charge is fornication and the sentence is flogging.
But if she is married or even, as in Safiyatu's case divorced, then this is considered to be adultery and the mandatory sentence is death by stoning.
Safiyatu's lawyer, a man called Abdulkadar Imam Ibrahim, does not inspire confidence.
He is optimistic that the appeal will be successful but he does not appear very clear about the facts of the case.
Un-Islamic
He lives in Sokoto but has not visited Safiyatu's village, nor has he asked for Yakubu to appear in the appeal court to answer the charges of rape.
"He has been acquitted, why should he be made to suffer again?" asks Mr Ibrahim.
Even more worrying is that Mr Ibrahim says he has been pressured not to take the case by his friends and colleagues.
He implies that there are those within the Muslim establishment who are keen that the stoning does go ahead, and that these same people see the appeal process as inappropriate and even un-Islamic.
Across town is another lawyer, in fact one of Mr Ibrahim's classmates at law school.
Aliyu Abubakar Sanyinna is the Sokoto state attorney general.
"It is the law of Allah. By executing anybody that is convicted under Islamic law, we are just complying with the laws of Allah, so we don't have anything to worry about."
How big would the stones be? "It could be something like this," says the attorney general, holding up his fist.
And how would the execution be carried out? "They will dig a pit, and then they will put the convict in a way that she will not be able to escape, and then she will be stoned."
The precise method, explains Mr Sanyinna carefully, is up to the judge in the case.
"Another way is that she could be tied up against a tree or pillar."
Political fireworks
It is not difficult to see why, in a country with overall as many Christians as Muslims, the introduction of these punishments into law has created a great deal of controversy and anger.
Although Christians are not directly subject to Sharia laws, there is still the feeling that the imposition of Islamic law in the northern states serves to enforce the political will of Muslim leaders over the substantial minority of non-Muslims living there.
More than 3,000 have been killed in riots since the introduction of Sharia criminal punishments two years ago.
It is a situation that seriously threatens the country's stability particularly in the run up to parliamentary and presidential elections next year and in 2003.
It also threatens to become a major source of contention between the federal government in Abuja, and the dozen northern states which have adopted the harsh Sharia penal code.
The federal Minister of Justice, Bola Ige, has condemned the stoning verdict as "harsh and crude" and said that stoning to death must not happen in Nigeria in 2001.
That Mr Ige is supporting Safiyatu's appeal against the Sokoto state judiciary, is a clear indication of the contradictions built into Nigeria's devolved legal system.
If Safiyatu's appeal eventually reaches the federal Supreme Court in Abuja, which under Nigeria's legal system it can, then we can expect serious political fireworks.
With a sentence of death still hanging over her head, Safiyatu Huseini is sadly little more than a pawn in a much larger political game.
Monday, 3 December, 2001, 16:15 GMT Nigeria death sentence reprieve
Sharia has been introduced across northern Nigeria states A court in northern Nigeria has ordered a stay of execution to a woman sentenced to be stoned to death despite saying she was raped.
The woman, Safiyatu Husaini, was convicted of adultery by a court in the north-western state of Sokoto after she had gone to court seeking an order that a 60-year-old man pay for her daughter's naming ceremony.
She says that he raped her but there were no other witnesses and she became the first person to be sentenced to death since Sharia was introduced in states across northern Nigeria in the past two years.
Appeals do not automatically stop sentences being carried out under Nigeria's Sharia Islamic law.
Reuters news agency quotes state officials as saying that the 35-year-old Ms Husaini, was given a death sentence because she was divorced.
If she had never been married, the sentence would have been 100 lashes.
Action Appeal November 14, 2001 Save Safiya Yakubu Hussaini from Death by Stoning Nigeria Safiya Yakubu Hussaini, a 30-year-old woman and a resident of Tungar-Tudu in Sokoto State in northern Nigeria, was tried in a Shari'ah court in the town of Gwadabawa on October 14, 2001 and condemned to death by stoning. Safiya Hussaini, who is a divorcee and has a five-month-old baby, was charged and convicted of adultery. Under Shari'ah adultery is a capital offence when the individual involved is married. It appears that different standards and validity of testimony were applied to Safiya and the married man involved in the case. The man was released because of lack of evidence raising the concern of discrimination on the basis of gender by the court. Please immediately send a letter to the Nigerian Ambassador to United States asking that Safiya's death sentence be commuted and that the Federal Government take all measures to ensure that Safiya's right to an appeal be respected and enforced. BACKGROUND Amnesty International takes no position on any country's religious or legal system. However AI is unconditionally opposed to imposition of the death penalty or the use of flogging, amputation and death by stoning as forms of punishment, as these constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment under international law, including treaties Nigeria has signed and ratified, such as the African Charter on Human and People's Rights and the UN Convention Against Torture. AI is concerned about the lack of transparency and the swiftness with which trials are conducted in Shari'ah courts in northern Nigeria. In particular, Amnesty is concerned about whether Safiya had legal counsel during trial; whether she was advised of her full rights of defence and her right to appeal to the higher courts, including the Supreme Court.
Monday, 14 January, 2002, 00:22 GMT Woman appeals death by stoning The case has provoked international reaction
By Dan Isaacs in Lagos
An Islamic court in northern Nigeria is hearing an appeal on Monday on behalf of a woman sentenced to death by stoning.
Safiya Husseini was convicted of adultery by a Sharia or Islamic court in Sokoto state last year, a crime which carries a mandatory death sentence.
But her lawyers are now seeking to overturn the conviction on the grounds that she was raped.
Harsh criminal punishments, such as death by stoning and amputation of limbs for theft, have been introduced in many of Nigeria's majority Muslim northern states over the past two years.
But although amputations have been carried out, no one has yet been stoned to death.
Young baby
Safiya Haseini is not being held in prison.
Under Islamic law, she is free to live with her family until she either wins her appeal or is taken away to be stoned to death.
When I met Safiya in her home village of Tungra Tudu near Sokoto, she was cradling a baby in her arms.
The girl's name is Adama, and almost a year old now, she's the product of the allegedly adulterous relationship.
Under Sharia law in Sokoto state, it is sufficient for a woman to conceive a child outside wedlock for her to be convicted.
Safiya herself is not married. But as a divorcee, she is still considered to have committed adultery, and not the lesser crime of fornication.
That crime applies only to women who have never been married and it carries the more lenient punishment of about 100 lashes.
For a man to be convicted of adultery, he must either confess to the judge in an Islamic court or else four men must have witnessed the actual act. But in Safiya's case, there were no witnesses and although the man had confessed to the police, he retracted his confession in the court, denying even that he had ever met her.
So now he is free, and she has a death sentence hanging over her.
Supreme court
Safiya's lawyer is appealing on the grounds that she now claims she was raped.
But this was not put forward as a defence at her first trial, and is therefore apparently unlikely to be accepted as sufficient grounds on this occasion.
Her best hope is that her lawyer finds sufficient procedural errors in the first trial, not least of which is that the alleged act of adultery took place before Sharia law came into effect in Sokoto state.
If Safiya does lose this appeal, she can take it further, right up to the Supreme Court in the federal capital, Abuja.
The case has already become extremely political, and ultimately it will be the politicians and not the lawyers who will decide Safiya's fate.
Monday, 14 January, 2002, 13:59 GMT Nigeria stoning appeal delayed The case has provoked international reaction An Islamic court in northern Nigeria has postponed an appeal hearing on behalf of a woman sentenced to death by stoning for the crime of adultery.
Safiya Husaini's lawyers had been seeking to overturn the conviction on the grounds that she was raped.
But she now says that the baby at the centre of the case was fathered by her former husband.
This would not be an offence under Sharia law and she would be acquitted.
The postponement is to give prosecution lawyers enough time to react to the new evidence.
The hearing will now take place on 18 March.
Animated crowd
Ms Husaini's lawyer, Abdulkadir Imam, said that her earlier statement had been made under duress, without legal representation.
"At that time, she did not understand the nature and consequence of the offence she was charged with nor the questions she was asked," he said.
Correspondents say that Ms Husaini sat breast-feeding her daughter during the hearing.
The courtroom was packed and there was an animated crowd outside.
Safiya Husaini was convicted by a Sharia or Islamic court in Sokoto state last year - a crime which carries a mandatory death sentence.
Harsh criminal punishments, such as death by stoning and amputation of limbs for theft, have been introduced in many of Nigeria's majority Muslim northern states over the past two years.
But although amputations have been carried out, no one has yet been stoned to death.
Young baby
Safiya Husaini is not being held in prison.
Under Islamic law, she is free to live with her family until she either wins her appeal or is taken away to be stoned to death.
Last month, our correspondent in Nigeria, Dan Isaacs, met Safiya Husaini in her home village of Tungra Tudu near Sokoto, and she was cradling a baby in her arms.
The girl's name is Adama, and almost a year old now, she is the product of the allegedly adulterous relationship.
Under Sharia law in Sokoto state, it is sufficient for a woman to conceive a child outside wedlock for her to be convicted.
Political case
Ms Husaini herself is not married. But as a divorcee, she is still considered to have committed adultery, and not the lesser crime of fornication.
That crime applies only to women who have never been married and it carries the more lenient punishment of about 100 lashes.
For a man to be convicted of adultery, he must either confess to the judge in an Islamic court or else four men must have witnessed the actual act.
If Ms Husaini does lose this appeal, she can take it further, right up to the Supreme Court in the federal capital, Abuja.
Our correspondent says that if Ms Husaini's latest appeal does not work, there are three further grounds for appeal:
that the act of adultery took place before the Sharia punishment of stoning was introduced in Sokoto; that Safiya was not properly informed of the nature of the proceedings at her earlier trial; and finally that she had not been provided with a lawyer, again at her first trial.
The case has already become extremely political, and our correspondent says that ultimately it will be the politicians and not the lawyers who will decide Ms Husaini's fate.
Monday, 18 March, 2002, 02:15 GMT Nigeria court to hear stoning appeal
By the BBC's Dan Isaacs Sokoto, northern Nigeria
A woman in Nigeria convicted of adultery by an Islamic court and sentenced to death by stoning will appear before an appeal hearing on Monday.
Harsh criminal punishments such as stoning and amputation for theft have been introduced into the legal code in many of Nigeria's majority Muslim northern states over the past two years.
But although amputations have been carried out, no one has yet been stoned to death.
The case has attracted a great deal of attention, both inside Nigeria and abroad and worldwide calls for clemency appear to have softened the resolve of the local authorities to carry out the punishment.
It is also a very sensitive issue within Nigeria, a country with a large Christian, as well as Muslim, population.
Living at home
Safiya Husaini, who is 35 years old, is not being held in prison.
Under Islamic law she is free to live with her family until she either wins her appeal or is taken away to be stoned to death for the crime of adultery.
She was convicted because she had borne a child out of wedlock.
The little girl, Adama, is a year old.
Safiya herself is not married, but as a divorcee she is still considered to have committed adultery and not the lesser crime of fornication.
The penalty for fornication, which applies only to women who have never been married, carries the lesser punishment of one hundred or so lashes.
President's concern
Safiya's lawyer is appealing the conviction on the grounds that her former husband is the child's father, although they divorced almost seven years ago.
Under Islamic law this can be used as a valid defence, if, that is, the judge believe her.
On Saturday, European Union leaders called on the court to throw out the ruling and said the authorities should "fully respect human rights and human dignity with particular reference to women".
Although President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is a devout Christian, has made it clear he would prefer the sentence not to be carried out, the final decision rests with a panel of judges in at a Sharia court in Sokoto.
However, if Safiya does lose this appeal she can take it further - right up to the Supreme Court in the Nigerian federal capital, Abuja.
The many faces of Sharia Wednesday, 21 June, 2000, 09:04 GMT 10:04 UK
Several Nigerian states may follow Zamfara's lead By BBC Analyst Michael Gallagher
When many non-Muslims think of the Sharia, they often conjure up an image of a public beheading or amputation.
However, Sharia differs enormously in its various implementations throughout the Islamic world.
Saudi Arabia has long practised a harsh form of the law, under which murderers and drug smugglers may be executed, thieves lose their hands, and adulterers may be stoned.
But as Nadeem Kasmi of the Al-Khoi Foundation in London explains, this does not offer a satisfactory understanding of the Sharia.
"Some offences require harsher penalties, but of course, it's not the case that everyone in Saudi Arabia is walking around with one or other limb missing. Nor are they all in fear of being put to the cane or being lashed," he says.
Other Muslims add that Saudi Arabia's judges are the only branch of state over which the country's royal family has no control, as Sharia makes them fiercely independent of all but their religious obligations.
Yet, as Mr Kasmi explains, not all Muslim societies prevent politics from interfering with the purity of Sharia.
"In Malaysia for example, you have a completely different situation.
"Although the majority there is Muslim, the society itself is very cosmopolitan.
"There are a lot of non-Muslims. And of course the country is economically very successful as well. So it has a completely different set of political social and economic dynamics, and they dictate a completely different interpretation of the law."
A code for living
Applied fully, the Sharia extends well beyond the sphere of criminal justice. It is a code for living that all Muslims should adhere to, including prayers, fasting and donations to the poor.
Women must cover themselves, and the sexes are frequently segregated. In effect, the Koran becomes a country's constitution.
Ahmed Sani, the governor of Zamfara, referring to this wider role of the Sharia, says: "There'll be no stealing or corruption, and people's mental and spiritual wellbeing is going to be encouraged."
But such wellbeing is, of course, open to argument.
Iran's Shi'ite Islamic revolution in 1979 led the way to a particular version of Sharia to which even many Muslims do not conform. The "Hadd" penal code of unalterable punishments for certain crimes was firmly applied.
And the Sharia's call for "jihad" - loosely interpreted as Holy War, but which can also be used metaphorically to mean conversion of the unfaithful - was stressed. In Pakistan too, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called for Sharia to be made supreme law in 1998.
But to what extent is it - or has it ever been - properly enforced?
Not much, believes Nadeem Kasmi: "It's really questionable to what extent Sharia as a philosophy is actually applied.
"One could easily argue that in Pakistan - as in other places - it's applied rather selectively and that certain interpretations are used simply to gain political points on the part of some administrations.
"It's used willy-nilly, it's used ad-hoc. And so there is no systematic Sharia law, in the same way as Saudi Arabia or Iran, where there is a Sharia tradition."
Sharia has been most consistently applied in those societies without a significant non-Muslim population.
It was completely abandoned in Turkey as part of the country's latter-day secularisation.
Elsewhere, as in partly-Christian Sudan, it has been seen as divisive by those who do not want to conform to an Islamic lifestyle.
And as such, it remains a potent weapon in the hands of those populist Muslim leaders who want to steal a march on their opponents.
