Author:
Publication: BBC News
Date: November 26, 2002
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2514821.stm
Nigeria's Government will not allow
a death sentence to be carried out on the woman who wrote an article which
Muslims complained insulted the Prophet Mohammed, sparking religious riots
last week.
The northern Nigerian state of Zamfara
endorsed an Islamic judgement calling on Muslims to kill the fashion writer
Isioma Daniel after she wrote in the ThisDay newspaper that the Prophet
Mohammed may have approved of the Miss World contest and possibly wished
to marry one of the beauty queens.
But Information Minister Jerry Gana
said the judgement was "null and void" and promised it would not be enforced.
Following protests over her article,
more than 200 people were killed in clashes between Muslims and Christians
in the northern city of Kaduna last week.
"The federal government under the
laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will not allow such an order in
any part of the federal republic, because the federal republic is governed
by the rule of law," Mr Gana told AFP news agency.
"The constitution of the federal
republic is the supreme law of the land and the laws do not provide for
anyone who has done something like what ThisDay has done to be killed,"
he said.
The Miss World contest was moved
to London after the riots.
Ms Daniel resigned from her job
and is in hiding but is believed to be still in Nigeria.
ThisDay has retracted the article
and printed several apologies.
'Irresponsible journalism'
After the article was published,
Muslim leaders in Kaduna urged their followers to demonstrate and text
messages were sent on mobile phones.
Zamfara's deputy governor Mamuda
Aliyu Shinkafi told religious leaders in the state capital, Gusau: "Like
Salman Rushdie, the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed."
The speech was rebroadcast on local
radio in Zamfara state, which was the first state in Nigeria to introduce
Islamic law.
"It is binding on all Muslims wherever
they are, to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty".
A "fatwa" was pronounced on Indian-born
British author Salman Rushdie in 1989 by the then Iranian spiritual leader,
Ayatollah Khomeini, for alleged blasphemy in his novel, the Satanic Verses.
A fatwa is a legal statement issued
by an Islamic religious leader.
A senior official from Nigeria's
highest Muslim body said that he was still studying the Zamfara statement.
Lateef Adegbite, secretary general
of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, hinted that he disagreed with
the decree, because the journalist was not a Muslim and the newspaper had
retracted the article and published apologies, according to the French
news agency, AFP.
But a Zamfara state spokesman said
that any leader could issue a fatwa.
State Commissioner for Information
Umar Dangaladima Magaji told Reuters news agency that the decree had been
in response to pressure from Islamic associations in Zamfara.
He said it could defuse anger that
might otherwise lead to further bloodshed.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo
has blamed "irresponsible journalism" for the bloodshed.
Sharia courts
Calm has now returned to Kaduna
and mass funerals have begun for more than 200 people known to have died
in the four days of rioting.
Court cases against the alleged
killers have started.
The Red Cross said 215 bodies had
been counted on Kaduna's streets and in mortuaries and correspondents say
the death toll could rise yet further. Muslim defendants are being tried
by the Islamic or Sharia courts in Kaduna State, while Christians are appearing
before civilian jurisdictions.
It is estimated that more than 1,000
people were injured and more than 11,000 made homeless in the clashes.
Civil rights activists said more
than 20 churches and eight mosques were burnt down in the city as well
as a number of hotels.
Two years ago, Kaduna saw more than
2,000 deaths in clashes between Christians and Muslims, sparked by the
introduction of Sharia law.
