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HUMAN rights and civil society groups in the country, yesterday, called on the Federal and Sokoto State governments to intervene urgently and save Mrs Safiya Tungar Tudu, a mother of four who was sentenced to death by stoning last month by an Upper Sharia Court sitting in Sokoto. They noted that such intervention will save the country's legal system from embarrassment. Speaking at "Safiya Must Not Die Campaign," anchored by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) community in the country, the campaign coordinator and also zonal coordinator of Women Advocate and Documentation Centre (WADC), Mrs Abiola Afolabi, said that Nigerians are concerned over the sentence handed down by the Sokoto Sharia Court on Safiya. Said she: "The non-governmental organisations participating in the campaign are worried over this Sharia court judgment and the agenda of religious fundamentalism which is taking over the terrain of the Nigerian legal system and its damaging impact on the Nigerian society." "As groups who believe in the enforcement of fundamental human right, we hope that the government of the day would intervene hastily, save Safiya from being stoned to death, and prevent the country from embarrassment and our legal system from further decadence. It is Safiya today, you may be the next victim because an injustice to one is a threat to a million," she further said. Mrs Afolabi blamed the Federal Government for not doing enough to tackle the Sharia issue when it first came up, noting that while President Olusegun Obasanjo described the Sharia issue as politically motivated, the Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige, described Sharia as constitutional, given rise to the unending problem that has followed the Sharia issue. Dr. Mohammed Ladan, senior law lecturer of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), who spoke on the topic entitled "Women's Rights Under Sharia in Northern Nigeria A Case Study of Safiya" at the occasion faulted the sentence passed by the Sokoto Sharia Upper Court, saying that the evidence and proof upon which the sentence was based was faulty. According to him, "the proof by four witnesses as required by the Quaran to convict a woman for adultery was not followed by the Sharia court judge, who handed down the death sentence by stoning on Safiya." Dr. Ladan noted that the whole application of Sharia law has been misapplied in the case of Safiya, saying "under the Sharia, every person irrespective of his or her age, sex, race, religion, colour and nationality has the right to live and respect for human life." "Following the trend in international human rights law, one can argue that a plethora of international conventions have entrenched the abolition of death penalty or sentence by whatever mode of execution, this also applies to the death sentence passed by the Upper Sharia Court, Sokoto on Safiya," he said. "Safiya's sentence to death by stoning, by virtue of her rights to life amounts to a violation of her right to life under the Sharia and also amount to a violation of her right to human dignity which are constitutionally and internationally guaranteed rights," he added.
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Hier, les groupes de la
société civile et de défense des droits
de l'homme du pays ont exhorté le gouvernement
fédéral et le gouvernement de l'Etat du Sokoto
à intervenir de toute urgence, afin de sauver Madame
Safiya Tungar Tudu, mère de quatre enfants qui, le
mois dernier, a été condamnée à
mort par lapidation par un Haut Tribunal de la Charia
siégeant à Sokoto. Ils ont constaté que
cette intervention éviterait au système
juridique du pays de sombrer dans la confusion. |
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