Safiya Hussaini Tungar Tudu (born 1967) is a Nigerian woman

condemned Condemned or The Condemned may refer to: Legal * Persons awaiting execution * A condemned property, or condemned building, by a local authority, usually for public health or safety reasons * A condemned property seized by power of eminent domain ...

to death for adultery in 2002. She gave birth to a child as a single woman in

Sokoto Sokoto is a major city located in extreme northwestern Nigeria, near the confluence of the Sokoto River and the Rima River. As of 2006 it has a population of over 427,760. Sokoto is the modern-day capital of Sokoto State and was previously the ...

, a Nigerian state under Sharia law. She was sentenced to be stoned, but was acquitted of all charges in March 2002 after a

retrial A new trial or retrial is a recurrence of a court case. A new trial may potentially be ordered for some or all of the matters at issue in the original trial. Depending upon the rules of the jurisdiction and the decision of the court that ordered ...

Background

Hussaini was sentenced to death by stoning in October 2001 for allegedly having a child with a married neighbour. She had the child after her divorce. Hussaini claimed that she was the victim of repeated rape by a man, whom the Sharia court found not guilty due to lack of evidence. During the trial, Hussaini had no legal representation and was not informed of her legal rights. The Sokoto court dismissed her testimony and convicted her on 12 October 2001. The verdict was widely condemned and international campaigns and petitions to release her were launched. Halima Abdullahi, director of Help Eliminate Loneliness and Poverty (HELP), a non-governmental organisation, also criticized the verdict. In a statement she said the verdict was a "thorough embarrassment” to the majority of Nigerian

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

. The group argued that the judgment was wrong because Hussaini was accused of adultery instead of fornication, since she was a divorcee. Also, the four witnesses stipulated by the Islamic law were not available at the trial. Halima claimed that the verdict was passed because Hussaini came from an

Underprivileged Social privilege is a theory of special advantage or entitlement, which benefits one person, often to the detriment of others. Privileged groups can be advantaged based on education, social class, caste, age, height, weight, nationality, geogra ...

class. While describing the verdict as “gender discrimination of the highest order,” the group called on Governor Attahiru Bafarawa to intervene to save Hussaini’s life. Hussaini appealed, her lawyers arguing that Hussaini's former husband was the father of her one-year-old daughter Adama and that the village woman had made her original statement under duress. Further they argued that the alleged act of adultery had taken place before sharia law was implemented in the state. Full Sharia law was established in

in June 2000, a month after baby Adama was conceived. She was defended by Nigerian

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

lawyer Hauwa Ibrahim. Hussaini also told the reporter Okorie Uguru that her pregnancy was the result of a rape. Hussaini won her appeal on March 25, 2002 and the case was dismissed. The Appeal Court in Sokoto found that the death sentence, originally handed down by an Islamic Sharia court in October, had been baseless. The court ruled that the adultery provisions of Sokoto's Sharia law could not be used against Hussaini, as the alleged adultery must have taken place before the introduction of Sharia law in Sokoto moreover pregnancy as evidence was not enough.Safiya Hussaini acquitted by Nigerian court
/ref> Hussaini's plight was later recorded in the book, ''Safiya Hussaini Tungar Tudu: I, Safiya'' (2004). 18 years later, Hussaini said she'd forgiven her tormentors.

References

External links

''Nigerian Woman Condemned to Death by Stoning Is Acquitted''
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New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

(2002-3-26)
Nigeria: warning over Sharia courts after Safiya Hussaini Acquittal
Amnesty International, 25 March 2002.
Nigerian Woman Avoids Stoning Death

Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu sits in a jail cell in Nigeria facing a death sentence
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hussaini, Safiya Victims of human rights abuses Nigerian prisoners sentenced to death Prisoners sentenced to death by Nigeria Living people 1967 births Women's rights in Nigeria Hausa people Violence against women in Nigeria

Background

See also

References

External links