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Have you been wondering what your school Amnesty International club has been up to since we last informed you on our mission to fight for human rights? Since October we have looked at many international cases of people being persecuted for their race, gender and beliefs. One such project that has captured the attention of Amnesty is the case of a woman in Nigeria who has been sentenced to death by stoning.
Amina Lawal is the 30 year-old Muslim woman from Nigeria who has been charged with adultery by confessing to have had a child while divorced. Pregnancy outside of marriage constitutes sufficient evidence for a woman to be convicted of adultery according to the new Shari'ah-based penal code for Muslims, recently introduced in Katsina State. With this penal code for Muslims the Nigerian authorities have concluded that she will be stoned to death because of the crime she has committed.
As you can see we in the western world have a government that has a much higher tolerance for some actions taken by people. Here having a child out of wedlock and murder are two very different things, which have different punishments. The same thing applies in Nigeria their governments have different penalties for the same crimes that we commit. This explains their conclusion to what Amina Lawal’s consequence will be. We all must understand that they live in a totally different part of the world and their beliefs and opinions are much different from ours, perhaps this is because of their background, past experience and tolerance for crime. So with this in mind, Amnesty has urged the Nigerian authorities to abolish all torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments, and to bring law and practice into line with obligations under Nigeria's 1999 Constitution and legally-binding international human rights agreements such as the Convention against Torture.
In order for Amnesty to get its message across, we need people to help the Nigerian authorities see that this sort of punishment is not carried out. The GFSS Amnesty club will be visiting classes with a petition for you to sign stating that you are against the stoning of Amina Lawal and information on this recent project. We have also talked to many members of the teaching staff about making our purpose known. Students can also expect information on walls and notice boards and in the cafeteria where amnesty members will be there to collect signatures. Your participation and support is greatly appreciated. We hope that by reading this article, we have given you the information that you need to take the initiative to save not only another humans life but the safety of any other victim of persecution by governments and opposing political groups.
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Comments
It is important to know the difference. Otiotio Ejiro | Jan 16th, 2003
The empathy of this article is very well appreciated but certain clarifications are important.
Most important, the Nigerian legal System does not and has never supported stoning to death as a means of capital punishment.Instead it is the Sharia law system which is not exclusive to Nigeria that supports stoning to death.
In Nigeria,the constitution provides for the authorithies to have laws according to the custom of thier environment.Sharia Law is a customary law introduced in the country in 2002 as a political strategiy to upset the political scenerio of the country is practiced in only 13 out 36 states in Nigeria.
The Nigerian Constitution supercedes the customary laws of the states and hence such death sentences whwenever pronounced are used to test the tolerance of the government and have never been implemented.
It is worthy to note however that certain Sharia sentences such as flogging and cutting off hands have been carried in the past.The federal government is public quite about this issue because taking a position openly will result in a break down of law and order and definitely lead to many more deaths and destruction of property than that which it maybe trying to save at the moment.
who gave the right for someone to take away anothers person life, hand or leg Florrie Kealau Alalo | Mar 30th, 2003
We are humans who cannot make life, so it is amazing that we mere humans try to make laws to take away another persons life. IN my religion, there is such a text similar to this, it states, if a person has done no wrong, let him be the first one to stone this woman. no one lifted a hand to stone her b/c everyone knew they have done something wrong in their lifetime that is a secret. so we could learn from this and stone no human being b/c no one is perfect.
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