Amina Lawal’s sentence upheld

On 19 August 2002, an Islamic high court in the Katsina state of Nigeria, upheld a sentence of death by stoning for Amina Lawal. The 31 year old woman had been convicted of adultery by a village court for having a child more than nine months after her divorce. She was not represented by a lawyer at the hearing and the man who allegedly fathered her daughter denied the offence and was acquitted. Following the intervention of lawyers appointed by Amnesty International, who defended her free of charge, Lawal was granted 30 days to appeal against the decision. Amina's lawyer filed another appeal to the Upper Sharia court of appeal in Katsina. Her sentence drew worldwide condemnation. Human rights campaigners branded the sentence inhumane and discriminative towards women. According to some interpretations of Sharia law, for a man to be convicted of adultery, he either has to confess to the crime or four men have to have witnessed the act. The law favours men. A man is allowed to beat his wife if she is disobedient, provided he does it within the guidelines prescribed by Islamic scholars. According to these guidelines, he must not break any bones or hit her in the face. In February 2004 the Sharia Court of Appeal ruled that Amina Lawal's conviction was invalid because she had been pregnant already when the harsh Islamic Shariah law was implemented in her home province.