Amina Lawal Kurami (born 1972) is a Nigerian woman previously sentenced to death by stoning for adultery and for conceiving a child out of wedlock. Lawal was sentenced by an Islamic Sharia court in Funtua, in the northern state of Katsina, in Nigeria, on 22 March 2002. The person she identified as the father of the child, Yahayya Muhammad Kurami, was acquitted of the accusation of zinā. Although Kurami was excused because he took an oath by the Qur’an, this was not an option for Lawal due to the presence of her child, which is considered proof in the Mālikī school.

Lawal's conviction sparked an international controversy. It was overturned by the Katsina State Sharia Court of Appeal which ruled that it violated Islamic law, and she later remarried.

Background

Lawal was the second Nigerian woman condemned to death by stoning for engaging in sex before marriage. The first woman, Safiya Hussaini, had her sentence overturned in March 2002 on her first appeal. Sharia law was established in northern Nigeria's mostly Muslim state Zamfara in 2000 and has since spread to at least twelve other states.

Appeals and acquittal

An appeal was put in motion and on 25 September 2003 Lawal's sentence of death by stoning for adultery was overturned by a five-judge panel of Katsina State Sharia Court of Appeal. Four of the five judges ruled that the conviction violated Islamic law on a number of points, which included: the defendant's right to proper legal defence was not ensured, the circumstantial evidence of her pregnancy was not sufficient, the confession of the accused was not valid, and only one instead of the required three judges was present at the time of conviction. two years prior to the date of her daughter's birth, she was still married to her husband. The Oprah Winfrey Show had a special report on Amina Lawal and encouraged viewers to send protest e-mails to the Nigerian Ambassador to the United States: over 1.2 million e-mails ensued.

Amnesty International had a solid response to the sentencing because Nigeria is a signatory of the legally binding international human rights Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The organization also implored Nigeria to bring Sharia law in line with the 1999 Nigerian Constitution. However, Amnesty was unaware that this debate already existed in the religiously separated Nigeria.

In May 2003, the official response of the Embassy of Nigeria in the Netherlands to the then Sharia-based trial of the State of Katsina in Nigeria, was that no court had given a stoning order on Lawal. They claimed the reports were "unfounded and malicious" and were "calculated to ridicule the Nigerian judicial system and the country's image before the international community." They claimed no knowledge of such a case.

Ambassador A.A. Agada of the Embassy of Nigeria in Washington D.C., U.S., was more forthcoming in recognizing the case of Lawal and stated on 29 August 2003: "the Embassy wishes to inform that Malama Amina Lawal has three levels of courts of appeal before the final determination of her case. The Embassy hereby assures the general public that Malama Lawal's right to a fair hearing under the Nigerian Constitution is guaranteed. Therefore due appellate processes will be followed to ensure the rule of law".

As noted in the Author Q&A at the end of Will Ferguson's novel 419, the fictional character Amina—a young pregnant woman fleeing the Sharia states of northern Nigeria on foot—was based on Amina Lawal.

Alison M. Jaggar, an American philosopher, wrote an article in 2005 pertaining to this case, titled "Saving Amina".

See also

  • Sharia in Nigeria

Notes

  • Amnesty International 2002 and update on her release November 2003 [https://web.archive.org/web/20050505020212/http://web.amnesty.org/wire/November2003/Nigeria]
  • Koinange, Jeff. "Woman sentenced to stoning freed." CNN. Monday 23 February 2004.
  • "Amina Lawal campaign 'unhelpful'." BBC. 13 May 2003.
  • Nigerian Embassy's Statement On The Fate Of Amina Lawal
  • Oprah Magazine Report 2002