I knew your muslim friends wouldn't let me down, rich. I admit I was getting a little nervous,,there wasn't much yesterday in the news that was too outrageous, (their murderous ways is getting kind of old hat) and for a few hours, I thought to myself...self..they better get on the ball and don't disappoint the world, there might be someone isolated in an Idaho Cabin for the last 1200 years on the top of a mountain eating acorns, and he may think I am making all of this up...but..lo and behold..they came through again..
Thursday March 28, 1:36 AM
Nigeria's 'second Safiya' seeks help to avoid stoning
Amina Lawal, a 30-year-old mother of three who last week became the second Nigerian woman sentenced to die by stoning for adultery under Islamic law, appealed to women's groups and rights activists to help her fight the sentence.
"I intend to appeal but I need help," Lawal told AFP in an interview at her home, her eyes cast down as she held her youngest child, four-month-old daughter Wasila, on her lap.
"I am a poor woman with no means to contract a lawyer," she said.
Lawal was sentenced to die by an Islamic court in Bakari, in northern Nigeria's Katsina State, on Friday after being found guilty of adultery. She has 30 days to appeal.
Twice married, the youngest of the 13 children of a local farmer, she was divorced for the second time in June 2000.
She started a relationship with a man in December that year which lasted until last November, when she gave birth to Wasila.
Under the strict Islamic law code in place in a dozen northern states, a woman who is divorced and subsequently has a sexual relationship with another man, is guilty of adultery, and if caught, is punished by stoning to death.
News of Lawal's sentencing emerged Monday, on the same day that an Islamic appeal court in the northwestern city of Sokoto dismissed on 'technical grounds' a similar sentence passed against another woman.
That case, involving a woman called Safiya Husaini, had provoked great international concern.
Nigerian Justice Minister Kanu Agabi last week wrote to the 12 northern Nigerian states implementing the Islamic law code, known as the Sharia, declaring that the code is in violation of the constitution.
However, until a test case is taken to the country's Supreme Court, his opinion will not be accepted by the so-called Sharia states, northern officials said.
Lawal's story of how she married, was divorced, and came to have her third child is lengthy and convoluted.
Under Islamic law, a woman may be considered to have had a child by a former husband up to seven years after they divorce without suspicion of adultery or the breaking of any new vows.
Lawal claimed to AFP that her pregnancy with Wasila had been "dormant" since her June 2000 divorce and named the father of her child as her former husband.
But she also admitted to having had sex with another man subsequent to her divorce, a confession which if repeated in court could cause her appeal to be turned down.
The softly-spoken and largely unschooled farmer's daughter said, however, there were numerous grounds for appeal. "The judge did not explain to me what the charges really meant and what rights I had. I was not allowed any witnesses," she said.
Lawal said she was arrested after her stepfather complained to the head of her village that she was pregnant and accused her boyfriend of being the father. Police then got involved leading to the charges.
She said her main worries were the strain the case was putting on her parents and what would happen to Wasila if she is put to death.
In Katsina, the capital of the state of the same name, state spokesman Ibrahim Abdullahi told AFP that the governor, a close friend of President Olusegun Obasanjo, would not intefere in the appeal process, and predicted that if the appeal was turned down, Lawal would be killed.
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