Safiya Freed!
Safiya Hussain was freed by the Shariah appeal court on 26th March after worldwide protest. The fight now moves on to saving the life of yet another woman facing death by stoning in Nigeria. More news as we get it.

DON’T KILL SAFIYA
Mrs Safiya Hussain is a Nigerian citizen who faces a sentence of death by stoning after being found guilty of adultery. She became pregnant after being raped. We publish the following letter from the Nigerian Democratic Socialist Movement in solidarity with their international campaign to raise awreness of Safiya's plight. The letter urges us all to sent protest letters to President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, and the Governor of Sokoto State where Safiya lives.

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

National Secretariat:

162, Ipaja Road, Lagos.

P.O.Box 2225, Agege, Lagos.

Tel: 01-4925671

E-mail: dsm@beta.linkserve.com

27 February 2002

DON’T KILL SAFIYA,

SET HER FREE NOW!

The Women Section of Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), the Nigerian section of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), calls for the quashing of the death sentence by stoning passed by a Shariah Court in Gwadabawa, Sokoto State, Nigeria, on Mrs. Safiya Hussain, a 35 year old woman and nursing mother, allegedly for committing adultery.

The judgement was delivered in October 2001 but the execution is yet to be carried out because Safiya appealed against it. A Shariah appeal court will continue the hearing of her appeal on 18^th March 2002.

Safiya’s defence was that she was raped by Yakubu Muazu, a man who lived in the same village. Both of them were actually arraigned before the Shariah court. But Muazu was acquitted by the court on the ground that no witness testified to confirm that he had any sexual relationship with Safiya while the shariah law requires at least four witnesses before any suspect can be convicted for adultery.

In contrast, the only evidence upon which the court convicted Safiya was her pregnancy which the judge said was a product of an illicit sexual relationship as she was not married at the time.

The women section of DSM strongly opposes the attempt to deprive Safiya of her life on the basis of an archaic, medieval and tyrannical law with innate bias and in-built discrimination against women. Her plight graphically reveals the horrendous and oppressive conditions under which women live in many parts of Nigeria either as a girl-child, a single parent, a mother, a wife or a widow. As undemocratic as many parts of the current 1999 Nigerian Constitution are, it still forbids discrimination on the basis of gender. But in reality, women still contend with myriads of discriminations in the areas of education, employment, wages, marriage and so on.

The discrimination against and oppression of women has particularly become aggravated in those parts of Nigeria, such as Sokoto State, which have introduced strict Islamic Shariah law in the past two years. During this period, not a single man has been convicted for the so-called adultery. Does it mean that a woman can commit the so-called adultery alone?

However, the shariah law does not only discriminate against women but the poor working people in general. Since the introduction of this law, several poor, poverty-stricken peasants have had their limbs amputated and disfigured for life on the simple allegation that they stole livestock such as cattle, goats or hen. Many ordinary workers and traders have been flogged and humiliated in public simply for drinking or selling alcohol. In contrast, the capitalist politicians and top civil servants who enacted the shariah law continue to get away with brazen acts of fraud and the looting of several millions of naira from public treasury.

DSM believes that Safiya should be freed because she is a victim of rape. However, even if she had not been raped, the women section of DSM would still oppose any attempt to convict her for committing a so-called adultery. We believe that women, like men, should have the right to enter into voluntary marital and sexual relationships. Therefore, we call for the acquittal of Safiya Hussain. We demand for the repeal of all legislations and traditions that discriminates against women and demean ordinary working people.

We call on workers, students, trade unionists and human rights activists all over the world to join the campaign to secure freedom for Safiya and save her from state killing. As the Shariah appeal court hears her appeal on 18^th March 2002, more pressure needs to be put on the governments of Sokoto State and Nigeria. Send protest letters today to:

The Governor Of Sokoto State
Government House,
Sokoto,
Sokoto State, Nigeria.

President Olusegun Obasanjo
Presidential Villa,
Aso Rock, Abuja,
Federal Capital Territory,
Nigeria.

Yours fraternally,

TITI SALAAM

Secretary, Women Section, Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM)

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