Sentences
Update on Amina Lawal: Nearly a week ago (May 4) I pointed to a Spanish Amnesty International site’s online petition to save the life of Amina Lawal, who has been sentenced in Nigeria to death by stoning for the “crime” of having had adulterous sex. Michele Landsberg’s column in today’s Toronto Star emphasizes that the online petitions will in fact probably harm Lawal’s case, since they’ll only make the “Taliban-type local leaders” go into conniptions and mete out even stiffer sentences. So, make nice instead, pull out your cheque book, and send money to BAOBAB/WLUML-AME Legal Defence Fund, c/o BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, P.O. Box 73630, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria. They’re the people on the ground in Nigeria fighting to save Lawal’s life.
As I also mentioned in the previous post, the Canadian A-I site encourages writing a letter to the High Commissioner for Nigeria in Canada (if you’re not in Canada, find the High Commissioner for your country), albeit without mentioning Lawal by name (to avoid offending the local fundamentalist bullies). Perhaps the High Commissioner is from the more secular south, however, and won’t in any case have much control over the doings of the Islamist north. But maybe someone in power will be convinced to convince someone else in power in the right place that a legal loophole, currently non-existent, can exist for Lawal.
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