Amina Lawal

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Amina Lawal Kurami (born 1973) is a Nigerian woman. In March 2002, an Islamic Sharia court (in Funtua, Nigeria in the northern state of Katsina) sentenced her to death by stoning for adultery for conceiving a child out of wedlock. The father of the child was not prosecuted for lack of evidence.

Her conviction was overturned and she has since remarried. Baobab for Women's Human Rights, an NGO based in Nigeria took up her case, which was argued by Nigerian lawyers trained in both secular and Sharia law. Amina's lawyers included Hauwa Ibrahim, a prominent human rights lawyer known for her pro bono work for people condemned under Sharia law.

In their successful defense of Amina Lawal, lawyers used the notion of "extended pregnancy," arguing that under Sharia law, a five year interval is possible between human conception and birth ([1]).

From Nigeria, the official response in 2003 was that no court gave a stoning order on Amina Lawal. Reports that she was ordered to be stoned as a consequence of an order by the Supreme Court met the following response: In every material sense, the report is totally untrue. The Nigeria Supreme Court has not even heard the case, so the question of passing judgement or upholding the death sentence does not arise ... The embassy strongly condemns this unfounded and malicious report calculated to ridicule the Nigerian judicial system and the country’s image before the international community. There is no iota of truth in the whole presentation([2]).

The affair exposed civil and religious tensions between the Christian and Muslim regions of Nigeria. The sentence also caused widespread outrage in the West, and a number of campaigns were launched to persuade the Nigerian government to overturn the sentence. The Miss World beauty contest, to be held in Nigeria in 2002, was pulled out of the African nation to protest Amina Lawal's treatment. The Oprah Winfrey show had a special report on Amina Lawal and encouraged viewers to send protest e-mails to the Nigerian Ambassador to the United States - over 1.2 million e-mails ensued.

On 25 September 2003 Lawal had her sentence overturned by the Sharia court of appeal, and is now free. The five-judge panel stated that she was not given "ample opportunity to defend herself" in the previous proceedings.