Sharia Cruelty Avoided

29 September 2003


Nigerian Adultress Won't be Stoned

Amina Lawal isn't going to be stoned to death after all. A Nigerian appeals court overturned her conviction of adultery, which under the sharia laws imposed by many 12 northern Nigerian states is punishable by burying the convicted up to his/her chest and throwing stones at said convict until the Angel of Death visits. The appellate court seems to have given in to political pressure, but the sharia law itself remains a danger to the peace of the country.

Ms. Lawal had a child 10 months after getting a divorce, so she clearly had sex out of wedlock (immaculate conception was not part of her defense). However, her partner was not charged, which set the feminists in the west off, and quite rightly. However, the 4 out of 5 judges on the appeals court decided that she did not have "ample opportunity to defend herself." This smells of a political fix. If the judges had the courage of their convictions, one might have seen the man involved tried, found guilty (after all, the child is pretty definite proof), and the stoning could have been a double feature.

Nigeria is a poor country, though, and it needs the west's money. Moreover, its population is Muslim only in the north; the south is largely Christian and anamist. Stonings, floggings and amputations are not part of the legal code in the south -- so much for equal protection under the law. Continued enforcement of the sharia code is going to create problems in Nigeria, a nation with 100 million souls and oil-wealth its elite squanders. Civil strife lies ahead when the right case divides north and south, and the Biafran disaster will pale in comparison.

The troubling fact remains that the case was tossed out, not the law. Adultery isn't pretty, and it probably deserves social sanction -- death by stoning seems excessive, though. On the other hand, the BBC reported, "Shortly after the verdict, reports were coming in of a Nigerian man being sentenced to death by stoning for sodomy after he allegedly slept with three boys in the northern Bauchi state." Not a word of complaint from anyone -- not the feminists, not the death penalty protesters, not the professional do-gooders. Its would seem that the best defense under sharia law is a camera and a microphone.

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