"Grazie Roma e che Dio vi benedica"

Con queste parole Safiya, la nigeriana condannata a morte per lapidazione nel suo paese, ha voluto ringraziare la Capitale per la solidariet�. Nel pomeriggio il consiglio comunale le attribuir� la cittadinanza onoraria.

  09/09/02

ROMA - "Pur non conoscendomi vi siete preoccupati per me e io sono felice di potervi incontrare. Grazie e che Dio vi benedica". Cos�, con poche parole, Safya, la donna nigeriana condannata alla lapidazione per aver concepito un figlio dopo essersi separata dal marito e poi assolta dopo che la comunit� internazionale si era interessata al suo caso, ha voluto ringraziare la citt� di Roma per la solidariet� espressa durante tutto il processo. La donna, timida e visibilmente emozionata, � nella Capitale per ricevere la cittadinanza onoraria.

 Vestita con gli abiti tradizionali del suo Paese, � giunta questa mattina in Campidoglio con il suo avvocato ed � stata immediatamente ricevuta dal sindaco Veltroni. Insieme a lei c'era anche  Etim Jack Okpoio, ambasciatore della Repubblica di Nigeria. "Abbiamo acceso il Colosseo per Safiya e ci auguriamo di poterlo riaccendere per Amina - ha detto Veltroni riferendosi all'altra donna nigeriana processata per adulterio - Vorremmo che la cittadinanza a Safiya fosse uno strumento perch� in tutto il mondo si abbandoni la pena di morte e vengano rispettati i diritti delle donne". Alla breve cerimonia erano presenti anche il presidente del consiglio comunale, Giuseppe Mannino, Patrizia Sentinelli, presidente della commissione delle Elette, e il giornalista Aldo Forbice, conduttore della trasmissione radiofonica Zapping che diede il via alla catena di solidariet� per Safiya.

Concluso l'incontro, Safiya si � recata a villa Piccolomini dove era in programma un convegno sul suo caso organizzato da Nicoletta Gaita, direttrice del centro Dionisya, che ha parlato della situazione del Paese africano spiegando come � stato possibile arrivare a una condanna alla lapidazione. "Il problema � l'ignoranza, la povert� e la mancata conoscenza della Sharia, la legge in base alla quale Safiya � stata condannata - ha detto Gaita - In Nigeria alcuni stati l'hanno adottata per motivi politici, con intenti di restaurazione, ma non la conoscono e il legale di Safiya � riuscita a difenderla proprio pretendendo un'applicazione pi� ortodossa della Sharia". Una strategia che ha portato all'assoluzione e che sar� la stessa con la quale verr� difesa anche Amina. Qualche speranza per l'assoluzione anche di quest'altra donna l'ha data l'ambasciatore nigeriano che, dopo aver detto di aver apprezzato la preoccupazione italiana per la sorte di Safiya, per� ha detto che occorre rispettare l'iter del processo in corso. Okpoio, spiegando che il suo Paese � appena uscito da una dittatura trentennale, ha anche detto che � giunto il momento per la Nigeria di affrontare il problema della pena di morte, poi ha chiesto anche l'impegno della comunit� internazionale.

 "Occorre offrire soluzioni alla povert� attraverso investimenti in Nigeria - ha detto il diplomatico - contribuire all'educazione della popolazione ed elevare il livello di vita di milioni di donne come Safiya, incoraggiando la cancellazione del debito". Una risposta a Okpoio � giunta immediatamente da Alfredo Mantica, sottosegretario agli esteri, che ha ribadito l'impegno del Governo italiano di essdere al fianco dei paesi in via di sviluppo che per� devono impegnarsi a cambiare sistema di governo. Senza questo passaggio, ha sottolineato Mantica, la cancellazione deldebito diventa un fatto soltanto contabile.

 Veltroni dice: "Siamo orgogliosi che Safiya entri a far parte della comunit� dei cittadini romani - ha detto - per noi � il simbolo della battaglia per superare la pena di morte che � un problema non soltanto della Nigeria ma anche di paesi pi� evoluti come la Cina e gli Stati Uniti". Nel pomeriggio, le celebrazioni si concluderanno in Campidoglio con l'atto pi� importante di tutta la giornata. Il consiglio comunale attribuir� infatti a Safiya la cittadinanza onoraria. Prossimo appuntamento, si augurano tutti, l'accensione del Colosseo anche per Amina. 

Rome honors Nigerian woman once sentenced to death for adultery

 Sep 9, 2002 

ROME - Rome conferred honorary citizenship Monday on a Nigerian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery in her country but was acquitted on appeal following an international outcry.

 Safiya Hussaini, carrying her infant daughter, received the honor from Mayor Walter Veltroni in the capital's Campidoglio square.

 "I am grateful and thankful," Hussaini told a press conference before the ceremony. "You have taken an interest in me without even knowing me."

 Italy has been at the forefront of an international campaign to spare the life of the woman, who was convicted by an Islamic court in Nigeria last year of conceiving a child with a married neighbor. The court ordered that Hussaini, a mother of five, be stoned, with the lower part of her body buried in sand.

 International rights organizations, women's groups, European Union ( news - web sites) parliamentarians and U.S. lawmakers condemned the sentence, urging Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to intervene on her behalf. In Rome, a series of candlelit vigils were staged in front of the Nigerian Embassy.

 An appeals court acquitted Hussaini in March after ruling that her alleged confession was inadmissible because authorities had not adequately informed her about the crime's seriousness under Shariah, or Islamic law.

 "We hope that this honorary citizenship which we are symbolically giving to Safiya could influence the whole world to put an end to death penalty and that there be respect for the rights of women � taking into account of course, different cultures and religions," Veltroni said Monday.

 Despite the outcome of Hussaini's case, in March an Islamic court in northern Nigeria sentenced another woman, 30-year-old Amina Lawal, to death by stoning for adultery after she gave birth to a daughter more than nine months after divorcing. The sentence is due to be carried out in 2004 after she finishes weaning her baby.

 "Since I am now free, I pray to Almighty God that Amina will be free also," said Hussaini.

 Nigeria is deeply divided about the application of Islamic law, which calls for cutting off a hand to punish theft and death for adultery. Decisions by a dozen states in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north to adopt the strict Islamic code since 1999 have sparked violent clashes with the region's Christian minority. 

Nigerian Woman Spared Stoning Prays for Compatriot

Sep 9, 2002

By Philip Pullella

 ROME  - Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu, a Nigerian mother saved from death by stoning, was feted in Rome Monday and prayed that another woman who faces the same fate under Islamic law in Nigeria might be saved too.

Hussaini, whose rugged face makes her look twice her 35 years, managed a timid, nearly toothless smile from under her yellow turban, confused by all the attention on her first trip outside Nigeria's remote northwestern Sokoto state.

 "You don't know me and I don't know you but I am most grateful to you for saving my life. God bless you all," she said, speaking in Hausa through an interpreter.

 Hussaini was spared from death by stoning imposed under Islamic sharia law after an international uproar earlier this year. She was later acquitted under a legal technicality.

 Hussaini, whose village has no electricity, running water or paved roads, was literally a world away in Rome, where she was driven in a luxury car to receive honorary citizenship in a building designed by Michelangelo.

 "Now that I am free I will pray to the Almighty God to allow Amina to be free too," she said at a conference in her honor as her year-and-a-half-old daughter Adama cried for attention.

 Last month, a Nigerian court rejected an appeal by 31-year-old Amina Lawal Kurami, who has given birth out of wedlock, and confirmed the sharia court's sentence that she be stoned to death.

 Kurami was initially sentenced to death in March by a lower court in her state of Katsina, which like a number of others in northern Nigeria has adopted sharia law.

 A judge has ordered the stoning not be carried out until Kurami has weaned her eight-month-old baby, which may not be until 2004.

 A number of countries have threatened to withdraw from this year's Miss World  beauty pageant in Nigeria's capital Abuja in November unless the sentence against Kurami is withdrawn.

 DEVELOPMENT NOT RELIGION

 Participants at the conference on Hussaini's case at Rome's Dionysia Center for Arts and Culture said the developed world had to look beyond the religious aspects of the Nigerian cases.

 "The problem is lack of education. If the developed world helps us, by the grace of God this kind of thing won't happen anymore," said Hauwa Kulu Sagir-Kumasi, Hussaini's lawyer.

 "This is not a problem of religion," said Etim Jack Okpoyo, Nigeria's ambassador to Italy.

 "This is a problem of development and education. When Safiya is educated she will know her rights, when she is educated she will know what to do at a given time, when she is educated she will not have an unwanted pregnancy," he said.

 "The developed countries are in the cabin of the ship. Underdeveloped countries like us are on the deck. When the commotion on the deck becomes so much the ship is bound to capsize," he said.

 "You can see now what happens when events in a tiny village in Afghanistan ( news - web sites) can cause inconvenience for the whole developed world. So, you can no longer close your eyes and be satisfied with where you are," he added.

 Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, Senator Alfredo Mantica and other participants at the seminar said development and debt relief were part of the solution to the problem.

 The Nigerian ambassador told the conference: "You have to assist us in debt cancellation, education and other areas. We want a bit of what you have."

Vanguard Lagos

Honour On Safiya May Prompt Death Penalty Ban Worldwide, Says Mayor of Rome

September 10, 2002

Nduka Uzuakpundu, With Agency Report

Rome

 ROME'S Mayor Walter Veltroni said, yesterday, he hoped the city's conferment of honorary citizenship on Safiya Husseini, the Nigerian single mother sentenced to death by a Sharia court in Sokoto State by storming would prompt a worldwide ban on the death penalty.

 Governor Attahiru Bafarawa of Sokoto State had attempted to stall Safiya's travel to Rome to receive the honour.

Saying it was a "beautiful day for Rome," Veltroni formally welcomed Safiya Husseini to Rome's City Hall. She escaped the death penalty imposed in 2000 on appeal after international outrage at the sentence.

 Veltroni said now that Safiya's life had been saved, attention should turn to the plight of Amina Lawal, also facing the death penalty for a similar offence under Sharia law in Katsina State. The slight 35-year-old Husseini, who arrived Rome from Lagos on Saturday, sat silently throughout a press conference, cradling her two-year-old child.

 "For Safiya, we have lit up the Colosseum and I know that yesterday (Sunday), when she was in the Colosseum and noted the majesty of the place she found herself in, she was very impressed," Veltroni said.

 "We hope to be able to light it up again for Amina and we want the citizenship we are giving symbolically to Safiya to be an impulse for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide, and recognition for the rights of women, while respecting religious and cultural diversity." Husseini spoke briefly in Hausa at a conference on women's rights in Central Rome later. Her speech was translated by her lawyer, Abdelkader Imam.

 She thanked Italians who had campaigned for her release, but was keen to highlight Lawal's case. "Now that I am free I will pray with all my strength that Amina will be spared and I will ask the Mayor of Rome and other authorities who have been interested in my case to help her also."

 Nigeria's Ambassador to Italy, Chief Etim Jack Okpoyo, told reporters that Nigeria should be allowed to deal with the Lawal case without being subjected to undue international pressure, such as that which accompanied Safiya's case.

 "Let me appeal to the entire community to give us respite on Amina Lawal," he told the press conference. "We have a process, which we have to go through in Nigeria to keep the peace. Amina has to go through this process, but we hope that in the long run she will also be free like Safiya.

 "So please, don't write so many letters, don't make calls like you have been doing. We appreciate your concern and we say Amina also will be free one of these days by the grace of God," he pleaded.

 The ambassador welcomed Rome's gesture, but said it should "not be just a political gimmick. Let this be a situation that can be translated into solid development between the two countries."

 "We are hoping that the government, the people, the religious organisations, the NGOs will come in to assist, at least where Safiya is, because if she is educated, if she is well-off, then she will be able to defend herself."

 lHow govs attempted to stall Safiya's journey

 Meanwhile, Gov. Attahiru Bafarawa of Sokoto State and Ahmad Sani of Zanfara State have condemned the honour and accused Italy of seeking to convert her to Christianity.

 "When I learnt of the invitation I wrote to the State Security Service chief and the Immigration Service asking them not to issue a passport to her," said Gov. Bafarawa. "Immigration honoured my request, but the Women's Affairs Ministry sent a delegation to her village which took her to Abuja where she was given a passport and a visa," he told state radio.

 Bafarawa said he had written to President Olusegun Obasanjo to protest.

 Gov. Ahmad Sani of Zamfara, also hit out. "Our fear is that Safiya and her daughter will be converted to Christianity, which we believe is the intent of the invitation," he told a news conference broadcast on state radio. "Even if she escapes conversion, her daughter may not escape the orchestrated plan to domicile her in Rome which means that she will get a Christian upbringing," he warned. Datti Ahmad, President of National Council on Sharia in Nigeria (NCSN) said in Kano that: "There is a sinister plan behind the invitation." He said that as Husseini had been tried and eventually found innocent by a Sharia Appeal Court, it was the legal code and not the accused woman who deserved to be honoured.

 Gov. Bafarawa in a separate interview on BBC yesterday said Safiya was kidnapped to Rome.

 The interview:

 "I understand that you were worried because it was Rome and Catholicism and an attempt to make her a Christian.

 That's her own fear.

 So what do you think is going to happen to her in Rome?

 We don't know.

 Why are you interfering in someone else's business that does not concern the government or governor.

 I have to be worried.

 She was not abducted. She was not kidnapped. She went on her own free will.

 She was kidnapped. Her father was asked. They said they were not aware of her going."