Amina Lawal

Frankfurt/Main (19 August 2002) - Today, the death sentence by stoning against 30-year old Amina Lawal was confirmed by four judges of a Sharia court in the federal state Katsina in Northern Nigeria. The stoning will be executed as soon as the mother of three has stopped breastfeeding her 8-month-old youngest daughter. The International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) calls on the international community to ban stoning as a barbaric form of punishment because of its exceptional cruelty. Throwing stones at a person until that person dies is a barbaric act and can no longer be tolerated in our times.

After the first verdict against Amina Lawal, ISHR Germany urged the German Federal Chancellor to bring an initiative before the United Nations and to work out a plan together with the UN General Secretary of how to reach this goal, so that, in the future, this form of punishment as such is eradicated.

The German Foreign Office does not see this to be necessity, but rather fears disadvantages for the human rights agenda as a whole. In a letter the German Foreign Office wrote: "Germany and the European Union are not in a position to pressure for example Northern Nigerian states to abolish Sharia criminal law. Like in some other regions of the world this practice is a central element of a religious, cultural and social identity of the society, although it may be highly anachronistic and shocking from our point of view. The 58th session of the Human Rights Commission this year confirmed these fears. When the German delegation criticised the Sharia and especially the practice of stoning to death as a grave human rights violation, all Muslim countries protested and considered the criticism to be "presumptuous". This has unfavourable effects on the human rights agenda as a whole... If Germany were to initiate an attempt to abolish Sharia in Nigeria or world-wide, the entire Islamic world would see this as patronising and a direct attack on their own way of life against which they would fight with fierceness. An increase of the radicalisation of extremist forces in these countries would be the consequence. In the end, mainly those would have to pay the price who presently await their trial before the Sharia courts."

ISHR Germany vehemently protests against the presumption that a further radicalisation of Islamists is the fault of those who speak up against stoning, and calls on the German government to finally and wholeheartedly fight against stoning. ISHR Germany has initiated a anti-stoning campaign. So far, several thousand German citizens have signed the appeal.