AminaLawal
Peoplein the News
Washingtonurged to intervene on Nigerian stoning verdict
AminaLawal
WASHINGTON, (AFP) - US rights groups Mondayslammed a Nigerian court decision to allow a woman to be stonedto death for having a child out of wedlock, and urged the Nigeriangovernment to commute the death sentence.
In Nigeria, a court in Funtua, 300 kilometers(190 miles) north of Abuja, threw out an appeal by 30-year-oldAmina Lawal and ordered she be taken to a public place, buriedup to her neck and put to death by stoning once her eight-month-oldchild is weaned.
New York-based Human Rights Watch calledthe court's upholding of the sentence a "cruel and inhumanapplication of Sharia law," while the United States' largestfeminist group called the penalty "barbaric."
"The legal system is being used topunish adult women for consensual sex," LaShawn Jefferson,executive director of Human Rights Watch women's rights division,said in a statement.
"The death penalty is never an appropriatepunishment for a crime, and, in this instance, the very natureof the crime is in doubt," Jefferson said.
Karen Johnson, executive vice presidentof the National Organization for Women, also slammed the ruling.
"This penalty, death by stoning, isparticularly barbaric. It's horrendous and does not bode wellfor women in Nigeria," said Johnson.
"We are asking the State Departmentto exert as much pressure as possible on the Nigerian Governmentto reverse this decision," she said. "We should notsupport a country unless it supports the human rights of women."
Lawal, a divorcee, gave birth in Januaryand was denounced by police to the sharia court.
She told the authorities that the fatherof Wasila, her third child, was Yahaya Mahmud, her boyfriend of11 months, whom she said had seduced her with an offer of marriage,the Nigerian court heard.
Mahmud admitted being Lawal's boyfriend,but swore on the Koran that he was not the father. He was discharged.Lawal was tried and convicted based on her confession.
Her team of Abuja-based lawyers and rightscampaigners had argued her conviction was unfair, that her confessionhad been retracted and that she had never understood the caseagainst her.
Amina's legal team announced an immediateappeal. If they fail, their client could become the first Nigerianto be stoned to death since 12 northern states reintroduced thestrict Sharia Islamic code after Nigeria returned to civilianrule in May 1999.
Islamic groupopposes hosting of Miss World in Nigeria
LAGOS, (AFP) - An Islamic group in northernNigeria has opposed the hosting of the 2002 Miss World beautypageant in the country, a spokesman said last Saturday.
Nigeria is due to host this year's editionof Miss World in November, a year after its national, Agbani Darego,won the competition.
But a Sokoto-based Islamic group, the Jama'atulMuslimeem, said it was against the event from going ahead becauseof its negative moral implications on society.
The contest has a "high potential tobreed promiscuity in the nation", the group's secretary DahiruMohammed Argungu told reporters.
He described the proposed pageant as a "paradeof nudity" that will make nonsense of ongoing campaigns againstHIV/AIDS that is ravaging the country.
Argungu said the contest is also an insultto Islam since it has been arranged to coincide with the Holymonth of Ramadan when Moslems will be observing their annual fasting.
Beauty queenmay stay away from Nigeria over stoning sentence
OSLO, Aug 23 (AFP) - Miss Norway could withdrawfrom the Miss World pageant due to be held in Nigeria in orderto protest against a Nigerian Islamic court's decision to sentencea young mother to death for having sex out of wedlock, her managersaid Friday.
"If I had to decide today, I wouldrecommend (Norwegian candidate) Kathrine Soerland to withdrawfrom the competition," manager Geir Hamnes told the onlineedition of the VG newspaper.
Applying strict Islamic law, or Sharia,a court in the northern city of Funtua on Monday threw out anappeal by 30-year-old Amina Lawal and ordered she be taken toa public place, buried up to her neck and put to death by stoningonce her eight-month-old daughter is weaned.
Hamnes said Miss World organizers oughtto consider moving the pageant, due to be held in November, toa new location given the situation of Nigerian women.
"What is happening there is frighteningand the organizing committee must take a decision, and if possiblechange the venue.
If that doesn't happen, the rest of us,in Norway, have to decide whether or not we want to participatein the contest," he said.
"If we participate in the contest inNigeria, with all the media coverage linked to it, we would belegitimizing the way the country operates. We can't make Nigeriaa better country but the best way we can oppose the death penaltyis to not go there," he said.
Miss Norway, Kathrine Soerland, has meanwhilequalified the stoning sentence as "utterly revolting",adding however that she would need to know more about the matterbefore deciding whether or not to take part in the pageant.
In March, Hamnes spent a night in prisonafter assaulting a Miss Norway candidate while inebriated.
Ugly row tarnishesMiss Germany's crown
Photo dated26 January 2002 of newly-elected Miss Germany Katrin Wrobel inBerlin. An ugly row has erupted in the German beuty world Thursday,22 August 2002, and it could mean the current Miss Germany losingher crown for objecting to rules forbidding her to pose nude ormarry. 25-year-old Wrobel wants to break the contract tying herto the Miss Germany Corporation which runs the annual beauty pageant.AFP PHOTO PEER GRIMM
BERLIN, (AFP) - An ugly row has eruptedin the German beauty world, and it could mean the current MissGermany losing her crown for objecting to rules forbidding herto pose nude or marry, organisers said Thursday.
Katrin Wrobel, a 25-year-old dental assistantfrom Berlin, wants to break the contract tying her to the MissGermany Corporation (MGC) which runs the annual beauty pageant.
MGC director Ralf Klemmer said it was becauseshe objected to the rules. He said he had rejected her demandand "we are currently in negotiations."
However, her lawyer Christian Schertz saidshe felt the MGC agency was not properly representing her interests.
Klemmer said he was very surprised by herattitude.
"It's the first case of this kind inGermany. We do not understand her reaction. No Miss Germany hasever earned as much in the six months since she was crowned.
"I wonder if it isn't all a joke togain publicity. She says she has no intention anyway of posingnude for photographs or of marrying her boyfriend, two thingswhich would break the rules."
The MichaelJackson Four?
(UPI) --Pop star Michael Jackson greets audience members recently beforespeaking on Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network radioshow about injustices faced by lesser known recording artists.Jackson also outlined his problems with Sony Records and its CEOTommy Mottola.
NEW YORK, (AFP) - Michael Jackson has becomea father again, according to news reports which seem unsure whetherthe child was adopted or the biological offspring of the self-styled"King of Pop."
The New York Daily News said Thursday thatJackson had shown off the six-month-old boy backstage after acabaret show in Las Vegas, Nevada, last month.
Jackson already has a five-year-old son,Prince Michael, and a four-year-old daughter, Paris, and the Newscited friends as saying that the new addition to the family wouldbe called Prince Michael II.
They also confirmed that Jackson was thebiological father, sparking speculation as to the identity ofthe mother.
Both the News and the latest issue of Peoplemagazine agreed the most likely candidate was Jackson's formerwife Debbie Rowe, who gave birth to Prince Michael and Paris.
Rowe and Jackson divorced in 1999, but sourcessaid their relationship remained very close.
The news that Jackson may have had a thirdchild was first reported in April by the National Enquirer tabloid,which insisted that the infant boy was adopted.