The case of Amina Lawal, a Nigerian woman sentenced to death by stoning by the Katsina State for adultery, will be heard again by Katsina state court on June 3. A recent international petition campaign has inaccurately claimed that Lawal will be executed on June 3.
A Northern Nigerian Islamic Court sentenced Amina Lawal, a single mother, to death by stoning for having sex out of wedlock on March 22, 2002. After a lower Islamic court in the Katsina state rejected Lawal’s appeal to the death by stoning sentence, Lawal’s lawyers appealed to the state court. If her appeal is rejected, her lawyers plan to appeal to the federal court of appeals, and if that is unsuccessful, they will appeal to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Sharia (Islamic) law was established in northern Nigeria’s mostly Muslim state Zamfara in 2000 and has spread to at least twelve other states since then. Pregnancy outside of marriages constitutes sufficient evidence for a woman to be convicted of adultery under sharia law.
