Free Republic

<p>Nigerian lawyer Hauwa Ibrahim was in Washington this week to celebrate her success in overturning a death sentence for a Nigerian Muslim woman accused of adultery and to warn that the struggle against unjust laws in her homeland must continue.</p>

Woman spared stoning says trial increased her faith in Islam Associated Press ABUJA, Nigeria — Spared death by stoning for adultery, 32-year-old Amina Lawal told The Associated Press on Tuesday she hopes to return to her Muslim village in northern Nigeria and remarry. "Whoever God chooses to be my husband will be all right with me," said the divorced, single mother in her first extended comments since an Islamic appeals court granted her clemency from her death sentence for bearing a child out of wedlock. "Everything is within the knowledge of God." Lawal, who can neither read nor write, cradled...

I was never afraid says Lawal The Nigerian mother who was spared death by stoning says she has renewed faith in Islam. Amina Lawal, 32, won clemency from an Islamic appeals court from her death sentence for bearing a child conceived out of wedlock. She said: "The trial did not affect my faith in Islam, because I know that Shariah makes room for fair trial. It is a fair procedure, and so I was never afraid throughout my trial." Lawal, a devout Muslim, would have been the first person stoned to death since more than a dozen heavily Islamic states...

LAGOS (AFP) - A Nigerian man has been sentenced to death by stoning for sodomy, officials said only moments after single mother Amina Lawal had her stoning sentence for adultery lifted by another Islamic court. The conviction of 20-year-old Jibrin Babaji for sleeping with three boys was made on Tuesday by a Sharia court in the northern Bauchi State, state officials told AFP. A spokesman for the court, Bala Ahmed, said Babaji had been sentenced after having confessed to sexually molesting the minors at different times over the past year, contrary to the Islamic law, or Sharia, in force in...

<p>September 27, 2003 -- A Nigerian court has overturned the sentence, under Islamic sharia law, of death by stoning against unwed mother Amina Lawal: The alleged adulteress was spared that fate Thursday on a technicality.</p> <p>The execution had been set for as soon as she finished weaning her baby daughter, conceived after her divorce two years ago.</p>

The alleged criminal was spared a stoning, but the truth took it right on the snout. Amina Lawal, a young Nigerian mother living under Islamic law (Sharia), had been sentenced to death by stoning, condemned to death for adultery. Twelve states of Nigeria are governed by Sharia. Nine days after giving birth, Amina Lawal was arrested. Although it takes two to make a baby, her partner, merely denied his involvement, even though Miss Lawal had said he had promised to marry her. He, too, would have received the stoning sentence, but under the Sharia his denial was virtually all that...

Sept. 24 — Under the glare of the international spotlight, a court in Nigeria on Thursday is expected to decide the fate of Amina Lawal, a young mother sentenced to death by stoning. After an 18-month court battle, this is her final chance to appeal for leniency under a harsh interpretation of Islamic law. There are good reasons that this case has drawn widespread attention, but experts say the basic fact of Lawal’s case — condemnation to death for adultery or another sexual offense — is not as rare as it would seem. • Buy Life Insurance • MSNBC Hot...

<p>JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Pressure is mounting on the Nigerian government to spare the life of a Muslim woman condemned to death by stoning for adultery.</p> <p>An Islamic court in the northern Nigerian city of Katsina will next week rule on whether to acquit 31-year-old single mother Amina Lawal on charges of adultery, or uphold the sentence of death by stoning.</p>

For the crime of having sex outside of marriage, 33-year-old Amina Lawal could be wrapped in a white shroud, taken to a killing ground and buried in sand up to her neck. The Islamic court that convicted Lawal would choose men to pick through a truckload of rocks for stones big enough to cause pain - but not big enough to kill her with one blow. Then, on the executioner's signal, they would hurl them at the trapped woman's head until her skull cracked. Lawal faces the possibility of a slow, tortured death because under Sharia, the harsh Islamic law...

On August 27, Amina Lawal, a 32-year-old Nigerian single mother, sat in an Islamic sharia court in Katsina state in northern Nigeria and nursed her two-year-old daughter, Wasila. Wasila had been born over nine months after Amina was divorced and, in Nigeria's Islamic courts, this is taken to be prima facie evidence that Amina committed adultery. If her appeal of this conviction is denied, she will be buried up to her chest, and the surrounding throng will throw stones at her until she is dead. The stones used must not be so small that they will inflict no damage, nor...

KATSINA, Nigeria (AFP) - Single mother Amina Lawal launched an appeal against an adultery conviction that could see her become the first Nigerian to be stoned to death since the return of Islamic law. The 31-year-old village housewife has become the best known symbol around the world of the controversy surrounding the reintroduction in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north of the strict Sharia criminal law code. On Wednesday she was back in the spotlight once again, cradling her baby daughter Wasila in Katsina State's Sharia Appeal Court before a five-strong bench of senior judges decked out in white robes and...

<p>KATSINA, Nigeria - An Islamic court in northern Nigeria on Tuesday postponed the appeal of a woman condemned to death by stoning for sex outside marriage.</p> <p>Shariah Appeals Court registrar Dalhat Abubakar said Amina Lawal's case was being deferred until Aug. 27 as two of the panel's four judges would be unavailable until then.</p>

When global e-mail protests backfireFive million people signed a petition to save a Nigerian woman from being stoned to death. But experts say the protest may do more harm than goodBy Libby BrooksTHE GUARDIANMonday, May 12, 2003,Page 9 ILLUSTATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE Over the past week, the Reverend Louise Franklin, a United Reformed church minister from Ilford, east London, has been receiving an unusual number of international calls on her mobile phone. "It's beginning to really hack me off," she confesses. "I've had people calling from all over the world. All I did was forward an e-mail that was sent to...