Rights groups condemn Islamic court sentence

Two Nigerian human rights organisations and a France-based organisation have condemned last week's ruling by an Islamic court in northern Nigeria which sentenced to death by stoning a Nigerian woman guilty of adultery, AFP has reported. The Community Development and Welfare Agenda (CDWA) said on Friday that the sentence violated the rights of Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu and infringed upon Nigeria's constitution by breaking the country's secular nature. The Civil Liberties Organisation supported CDWA's position, adding that Tungar-Tudu should be given clemency as she is pregnant, AFP reported. The Paris-based organisation Action droits de l'homme, in a letter to the Nigerian ambassador in France, urges him to ask President Olusegun Obasanjo to intercede in the matter, the French news organisation reported. The Islamic court in Sokoto State, northern Nigeria, condemned Tungar-Tudu for having pre-marital sex, a punishable offence in Islamic law. Several states in Nigeria's Muslim-dominated north have adopted the strict religious legal code- also known as Sharia- which prohibits pre-marital sex, alcohol consumption, theft, among other things.