Posted on 11/26/2002 1:54:56 PM PST by knighthawk
LAGOS: The author of an article on the Miss World pageant considered blasphemous by many Nigerian Muslims has fled the country after a violent backlash, a senior source at her former newspaper said.
The source, who asked not to be identified, said: "I can confirm to you that she has left Nigeria."
The article published by the daily This Day on November 16 angered Nigerian Muslims. Riots broke out in the northern city of Kaduna which left around 220 people dead and forced pageant organisers to abandon plans to stage this year's contest in Nigeria.
Today the mainly Muslim state of Zamfara announced a "fatwa" calling Muslims to kill the reporter, Isioma Daniel.
This Day had repeatedly apologised for the article, inisting that Saturday editor Simon Kolawole -- who has been arrested by federal authorities -- had attempted to cut the offending phrase but had been let down by the paper's editing software.
Daniel's mobile telephone was not responding Tuesday.
Her article has also been attacked by Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo and by Miss World president Julia Morley, and Nigeria's state security service said last week it was seeking to arrest her.
This Day managing director Victor Ifijeh said that Daniel -- whom the paper described as "a style reporter that had just joined This Day after a short journalism career in the UK" -- had resigned her post.
We demand her return so we can kidnap her, beat her, and rape her, and beat her, and rape her again and again, and, finally after we are all exhausted from lust, finally, in an act of pity and mercy, cut her throat.
Signed Nigerian Fatwa Fanatics
This sounds like a job for the Superleft hero's of the ACLU.
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