ONEWORLD � SOUTH ASIA

"Safiya Must Not Die," Say Campaigners

By Kalyani, 

Women's groups and human rights organizations are stepping up efforts to save the life of a 35-year-old woman sentenced to death by stoning in a controversial ruling handed down by an Islamic court in Nigeria.

Prominent rights advocates and activists have joined a campaign calling for justice for Safiya Hussaini who was convicted earlier this year in Nigeria's northern Sokoto state for allegedly committing adultery.

 The "Safiya Must Not Die" campaign has been gaining ground following a Sokoto Appeal Court ruling less than two weeks ago which upheld the death penalty against Hussaini.

 "We must not allow this murder to take place," said Nobel Laureate and author Wole Soyinka, urging Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to take immediate action to prevent the execution.

 Hussaini was sentenced on October 14 after villagers reported to local police that she was carrying a child conceived out of wedlock and had therefore violated Islamic Sharia law.

 While Hussaini maintains she was raped, authorities say they do not have evidence against her alleged assailant.

 "It appears that different standards and validity of testimony were applied to Safiya and the married man involved in the case," said Amnesty International in a recent statement.

 "The man was released because of lack of evidence raising the concern of discrimination on the basis of gender by the court," the group said.

 The sentence against Hussaini was the first of its kind since Sharia law was introduced in Sokoto a year ago.

 Women's Rights Watch Nigeria has called for the immediate repeal of the law under which Hussaini was condemned to death. In a letter to Sokoto's attorney general, the group described the death sentence as "illegal and unconstitutional".

 "It is unimaginable that in this 21st Century when nations are...bridging the gender gap by ensuring gender equality and equity your state is condemning a pregnant woman to death for engaging in voluntary sexual relations outside marriage," said the letter.

 Another group, the United States-based Feminist Majority Foundation, called the sentence "a symptom of Talibanization and an example of the spread of fundamentalist extremism."

 The sentence on Hussaini, the groups pointed out, was yet another in a series of harsh punishments meted out to women in Nigeria over the last year.

 In August, a 20-year-old woman was sentenced to a public flogging of 100 cane lashes for having an extramarital affair.

 Eight months earlier, a 17-year-old girl was sentenced to 180 lashes for having premarital sex and making false accusations against men in her village. The sentence was later reduced to 100 lashes