Two women sentenced to death by a court in northern Nigeria are seeking to appeal the sentences, a human rights group said Friday.
Two women sentenced to death by a court in northern Nigeria are seeking to appeal the sentences, a human rights group said Friday. The women, sentenced to death by stoning for allegedly committing adultery, will see their appeals heard on Oct. 25 and Nov. 3 respectively.
Nigeria, a federation of somewhat autonomous states, has 36 states of which 12 predominantly Muslim states have declared Sharia law since 2000.
Under the controversial Islamic Shariah criminal codes, sex outside wedlock is considered adultery if one of the partners is or has ever been married. If neither partner was ever married, then sex outside wedlock is condemned as "fornication," a crime punishable by whipping.
The two recent sentences, passed down in Nigeria's Bauchi state in September and early October, are the first of their kind in over a year in the predominantly Muslim north.
In the most recent case, Hajara Ibrahim from Bauchi state, central eastern Nigeria, was sentenced Oct. 5, confessing to have had a physical relationship with a man by the name of Dauda Sani, whom she claims had promised to marry her.
Sani, however, denied the claim and since Ibrahim, 18, did not have four male witnesses to support her contentions, he was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Abubakar Bello, the presiding judge at the court in Lere, Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area (LGA), deemed Ibrahim to be a divorcee and, as a consequence, found her guilty of adultery. This carries the mandatory sentence of death by stoning. Judge Bello added, however, that the sentence was subject to the approval of the Governor of Bauchi.
Ibrahim was released into the custody of her family pending the birth of her child. Her family appealed against the sentence at a higher Shari’ah Court, maintaining her marriage was never consummated and that as a single woman Ibrahim should have been charged with fornication, which carries a lesser sentence of flogging. She is due to appeal the ruling on Monday, said Bunmi Dipo-Salami of Baobab, a group of human rights lawyers that is funding lawyers for her defense.
The other woman, 25-year-old Daso Adamu, was sentenced to death by stoning on Sept. 15. A Baobab official reported that Adamu claims she was made pregnant by one of her two ex-husbands and is appealing on the basis that the sentence was "unfair and unjust." The official gave no further details.
According to the Associated Press, Adamu was initially imprisoned along with her baby of less than six months. She was released on bail on Wednesday, after her first appeal hearing. The case was adjourned until Nov. 3.
Under Shariah law, men can only be convicted of adultery on the basis of witness statements, while pregnancy is considered sufficient evidence to convict women. In all but one case, men have been cleared, as Shariah courts found there was insufficient evidence to prove they had sex with the women. Tests to determine children's paternity have not been conducted by the courts.
“It is worrying that women are held to a different standard of evidence to men and that Shari’ah courts continue to hand down sentences that violate Nigeria’s constitutional and international obligations,” commented Mervyn Thomas, Chief Executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).
Thomas said that CSW, a human rights charity based in the UK “will continue to do all it can to support religious freedom in Nigeria and continues to call on the Nigerian authorities to ensure that the country’s secular constitution is adhered to even in those states where Shari’ah law is the de facto state law.”
According to CSW, Adamu and Ibrahim are the third and fourth persons to be sentenced to death in Bauchi under the Shari’ah penal code. No one has so far been stoned to death under Shariah in Nigeria. Two other women have previously been sentenced to death for adultery, but both sentences were overturned on appeal. However, CSW reports that 20 others are awaiting amputations.
(Source: Christianpost.com)
Kenneth Chan
kenneth@christianpost.com
Britain
October 21, 2004
Muslim men use law loophole to get a harem of 'wives'
By Lewis Smith
UP TO 4,000 British Muslim men have entered into polygamous marriages, some of them keeping as many as five wives, according to senior religious figures. They have taken advantage of a loophole in the laws against bigamy by going through a “nikah” ceremony at a mosque rather than registering the marriages officially.
Many are avoiding the expense and obligations of divorce, but an estimated 2,000 or more are men who wish to exercise their “right”, according to traditional interpretations of the Koran, to have as many as four wives.
Such relationships, sealed in a Muslim ceremony conducted by an imam, are recognised by Islamic authorities as marriages in the eyes of God. They are, however, invalid under British law, which leaves many “wives” with no rights to their husband’s income, pension, benefits or share of the family home should the relationship break up.
In extreme cases, women brought from abroad, notably from Bangladesh, to marry a British Muslim have been victims of so-called honour killings by their families after being sent home when the relationship has failed.
Senior members of Britain’s Muslim community are taking steps to try to reduce the number of polygamous relationships. Guidelines issued last year by the Muslim Parliament advise against weddings ratified only through Islamic ceremonies.
“No Muslim should seek to contract a marriage without the full protection of the law of the land,” the guidelines state. “Persons most likely to be harmed by avoiding the civil registration would be the wives, who would only then have the status in the UK of unmarried ‘partners’ — a status forbidden in Islam. The children would be illegitimate. No Muslim man should wish to put his spouse or offspring in such a dishonourable position.”
Imams are urged to “have the courage and integrity” to satisfy themselves that prospective grooms are not already married. A marriage contract designed to remind men and women of their obligations and rights in marriage is also being put together by the Muslim Parliament with the UK Shariah Council. It emphasises equality between husbands and wives and, if widely accepted by mosques, should dramatically reduce the number of imams prepared to conduct ceremonies to legitimise polygamous relationships.
Mufti Barkatullah, a judge on the Shariah Council and one of the authors of the contract, said that some mosques had clamped down on polygamy by checking that couples wanting to wed are not already legally married. It is hoped that by reminding women that they are not inferior to their male partner, the contract will reduce the number of women prepared to become second, third or fourth wives.
The Shariah Council, representing mosques and providing guidance on practical and theological issues for Muslims, deals with 600 applications to marry polygamously each year in Britain. The vast majority of these are only technically polygamous. Some are men and women hoping to legitimise a second relationship having separated from their first partners, but without wanting the stigma, cost or effort of getting divorced officially. Others are women seeking rulings that their first marriage was forced and therefore void.
Mufti Barkatullah, a senior imam in Finchley, North London, estimated that there were 3,000 technically polygamous relationships with another 1,000 fitting the traditional idea of a man with many wives.
Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament, said: “I’ve come across one man who has five wives and I would estimate that there are 2,000 men in polygamous marriages in Britain. Of those, 1,000 have multiple wives based here and the other 1,000 have one here and others in different countries. In my view, in this country there are absolutely no reasons why people would have more than one wife.”
Cassandra Balchin, of the feminist pressure group Women Living Under Muslim Laws, said that wives who had been brought from overseas were most at risk. “They can be sent back penniless to their homeland if the marriage breaks down, having to leave their children behind,” she said. “In societies where a woman is regarded as at fault when a marriage fails, she may even be killed by her family.”
The Home Office said: “It remains a criminal offence in the UK for a man to contract a second marriage while he is lawfully married to his first wife.” (Source: Times Online)
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