OverseasAnalysis
Rescuing acondemned mom
WASHINGTON, (UPI) -- The hope of a youngNigerian mother sentenced to be stoned to death for alleged adulterymay lie with the persuasive powers of top Muslim scholars fromaround the world, United Press International learned Tuesday.
Prominent Islamic, not Christian, sagesshould undertake the rescue effort on behalf of 30-year-old AminaLawal, according to Lebanese-born law professor Azizah Y. al-Hibri,who is also the founder and executive director of Karama, a Washington-basedorganization of Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights.
Hibri told UPI she was ready to assemblean international delegation of Muslim savants, male and female,to fly to Funtua in the northern Nigerian state of Katsina, wherean Islamic high court rejected Lawal's appeal against her deathsentence on Monday.
"The only thing we are lacking is funds,"said al-Hibri, who teaches law at the University of Richmond inVirginia. She added that she hoped for support from internationalhuman rights organizations grasping the efficacy of an interventionby Muslim scholars. "We must work within the culture,"meaning the Islamic culture of northern Nigeria. Al-Hibri is anexpert on the Shariah, or Muslim religious law.
The case involves a poor and uneducatedtribal woman, who became pregnant allegedly after her divorce.A lower court that sentenced her to death in March used her babydaughter as evidence for her "crime," but acquittedthe child's father, thus violating Islamic code, according toal-Hibri.
The high court judges stayed Lawal's executionuntil she weaned her child from breast-feeding. In January 2004,her relatives must accompany her to the site where she will bestoned to death -- the "ultimate form of torture," asAmnesty International termed it in a statement.
The Lawal case is bound to bring to a boilthe long-simmering conflict between the Nigerian federal governmentand the country's 12 northern states over their introduction ofthe Shariah. On this point there is agreement between scholarsand activists such as Paul Marshall of Freedom House, Dutch Islamicstudies professor Ruud Peters, and LaShawn Jefferson, executivedirector of the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.
Jefferson urged the Nigerian governmentTuesday to commute Lawal's death sentence and drop the chargesagainst her. The verdict against the young woman violated thedemocratic Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria andthe country's "international human rights commitments,"Jefferson said.
Nigeria's democratically elected president,Olusegun Obansanjo, is a Baptist. Of the 126 million Nigerians,50 percent are Muslim, 40 percent Christian and 10 percent followindigenous beliefs.
The Lawal case is expected to be the firsttest of the Shariah's constitutionality before the country's SupremeCourt. Of the 36 Nigerian states, 12 have so far adopted the Islamiclegal code, though not all of them with the severity evidencedin Katsina.
Peters, a specialist on Islamic law anda professor at the University of Amsterdam, told UPI, "TheSupreme Court could squash parts of the Shari'ah."
In some of the northern regions, "courtshave ordered amputations as punishment for theft," accordingto Human Rights Watch. Before Amina Lawal, another Nigerian woman,Safiya Hussaini, had been condemned to die by stoning.
But her sentence was overturned in Marchafter heavy pressure, especially from the European Union and adeclaration by the European Parliament condemning the verdict."The EU will act in the Lawal case as well," Peterspredicted.
But apart from political efforts, the Shariahitself offers hope to Amina Lawal, both Peters and al-Hibri contended."The Shariah judges in northern Nigeria are not very sophisticated,"said Peters who had done research in that region.
Azizah al-Hibri insisted that the Shariah,too, knows the concept of due process, which was not applied."If this was consensual sex, how come the father was acquitted?"she asked. "Furthermore, if the partners weren't marriedpeople, their act wasn't a capital crime under Islamic law."
The young peasant woman's conviction wasbased on her confession to "adultery," the Arabic termfor which is "zena." But her lawyers argued that shedid not even understand this word because she is only conversantin her tribal tongue. Thus the confession to something she didnot even understand also violated the Shariah, al-Hibri explained.
Ruud Peters said that Islamic law, too,includes the concept of reasonable doubt. "It contains the'sleeping fetus' notion that pregnancies may take as long as twoyears to come to term." This implies that the law shouldallow for the possibility that Amina Lawal's child was fatheredby her husband before he divorced her.
While this may strike some as sophistry,Azizah al-Hibri stressed that the Shariah is a problem "thatmust ultimately be addressed theologically." In line withan increasing number of Muslim scholars she asked, "Is Islamproperly applied?"