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Nigerian court hears blasphemy conviction appeals in northern city Kano

Published 26/11/2020, 18:41
© Reuters.

By Hamza Ibrahim
KANO, Nigeria, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Two judges in northern
Nigeria on Thursday heard the first appeals against Islamic law
blasphemy convictions that caused global outrage when a man was
sentenced to death over a WhatsApp message and a 13-year-old
received a 10-year jail term.
The judges, at the appeals section of the secular high court
in the city of Kano, said verdicts would be delivered at a later
date.
In August, a Kano sharia court sentenced Yahaya Aminu Sharif
to death for allegedly sharing a blasphemous message on WhatsApp
and Omar Farouq, accused of making blasphemous comments in an
argument, received a prison sentence.
The convictions were condemned by rights groups, the United
Nations and the head of Poland's Auschwitz Memorial who said he
and others would volunteer to each serve a month of the boy's
prison sentence. They also sparked a debate about sharia's
compatibility with Nigeria's secular constitution.

Nigeria is roughly evenly split between a predominantly
Muslim north and mainly Christian south. Sharia, or Islamic
religious law is applied in 12 of Nigeria's 36 states where
sharia courts operate alongside secular ones.
The charges prompted anger in Kano, the north's commercial
hub, and protesters burned down Sharif's family home in March.
Kola Alapinni, a defence lawyer representing the two
defendants, said the convictions were incompatible with
Nigeria's constitution, which gives people the right to have
freedom of expression.
"Where any law conflicts with the constitution that law must
bow to the constitution," he told Reuters outside the court.
Both sides can take their case to the federal court of
appeal if they are unhappy with the state appeal court's ruling.

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