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| East/Subsaharan Africa |
| Nigerian gov sez go ahead and stone her... |
| 2002-09-10 |
| The governor of the home state of Nigerian single-mother Amina Lawal will not intervene to overturn her death sentence. The fate of the 30-year-old housewife now lies solely with her upcoming legal appeals, as the federal government has also said it is powerless to intervene in an Islamic Sharia court case. "Nope, nope. Nothin' we can do to stop this barbarism, even if we wanted to..." Monday's statement by the governor's spokesman is a blow for rights campaigners and for the organisers of the Miss World contest, who hoped the issue might be settled early in order to head off protests from beauty queens. "The government will not be swayed by local and international human rights campaigns, nothing will make us meddle with the legal proceedings," said Katsina state spokesman Ibrahim Abdullahi. "She was convicted by a Sharia court for adultery after which she filed an appeal which she lost. She has room for more appeals, so let her use it and prove her innocence." "What the hell? It's only some woman. There's lots more of them..." "The position of the government on this case is very clear. Amina's case is a religious one which should not be interfered with by anybody, not even the government." "I'll tell you more about it, next email I send you..." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |