ABUJA: Nigeria’s Supreme Court held its first hearing in a high-profile blasphemy case Thursday that defense lawyers hope will lead to a ruling that puts curbs on sharia law.
Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a Sufi Muslim musician, was sentenced to death by a sharia court in Nigeria’s northern Kano state in 2020 for sharing song lyrics deemed to insult the Prophet Muhammad.
The Kano State High Court later overturned the conviction but also ordered a retrial — an outcome his lawyers are trying to prevent while seeking a wider ruling on punishments for violating sharia law, including the death penalty for blasphemy and adultery.
“All various aspects of the sharia penal code that offend the constitution and Nigeria’s international obligations, we cannot have on our statute books,” lawyer Kola Alapinni told reporters after the court granted an extension for his team to file their appeal.
Though Nigeria’s federal government is secular, sharia law operates alongside common law in 12 mostly Muslim northern states.
Harsh punishments for violations of Islamic law are rarely handed out — and almost never implemented. Death sentences for adultery and blasphemy since the courts were established 25 years ago, have either been overturned or paused pending appeal.
However, mobs in the socially conservative north have been known to carry out vigilante justice for alleged blasphemy.
As the case has wound its way to Nigeria’s highest court, civil and religious liberties advocates from the United States, European Union and United Nations have voiced support for Sharif-Aminu.
In April, the international court for the west African regional bloc, the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States, determined Kano’s death penalty for blasphemy was “excessive and disproportionate.”
Nigeria has not enforced the ruling.
Sharif-Aminu is alleged to have shared lyrics in a WhatsApp group that said that a Muslim religious leader he followed was more pious than the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s founder, Alapinni told AFP.
Lamido Abba Sorondinki, a lawyer for the Kano state government, told reporters that “anybody that has uttered any word that touches the integrity of the holy prophet, we’ll punish him.”
Standing next to him, Alapinni laughed and quipped: “My learned friend is not the Supreme Court — that’s just the opposition.”
Sharif-Aminu remains in detention as his appeal continues.
Nigeria top court takes up WhatsApp blasphemy case
https://arab.news/53tau
Nigeria top court takes up WhatsApp blasphemy case
- The Kano State High Court later overturned the conviction but also ordered a retrial
- Harsh punishments for violations of Islamic law are rarely handed out — and almost never implemented
12 killed, 20 injured in suicide blast outside district court in Pakistan’s capital – official
- According to the official, the explosion took place outside a district court in Islamabad’s G-11 sector
ISLAMABAD: Twelve people were killed while 20 others were injured in a suicide blast outside a court in Islamabad on Tuesday, a security official confirmed.
According to the official, the explosion took place outside a district court in Islamabad’s G-11 sector, saying the blast affected mostly passersby standing nearby at the time of the incident.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, the official said the blast had been carried out by the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) outfit, which the military frequently describes as “Indian-sponsored” and “Fitna-ul-Khawarij.”
“The bodies of 12 people killed in the explosion have been shifted to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Hospital,” the security official said on condition of anonymity. “Twenty injured have been shifted to emergency room at PIMS Hospital.”
The official said that more wounded persons were being brought into the hospital.
“The alleged suicide bomber’s severed head was found on the road,” he added.
Earlier Tuesday, Pakistani security forces said they foiled an attempt by militants to take cadets hostage at an army-run college overnight, when a suicide car bomber and five other Pakistani Taliban fighters targeted the facility in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.
The attack started on Monday evening, when a bomber tried to storm the cadet college in Wana, a city in KP near the Afghan border. The area had until recent years served as a base for the Pakistani Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other foreign militants.
According to Alamgir Mahsud, the local police chief, two of the militants were quickly killed by troops while three militants managed to enter the compound before being cornered in an administrative block. The army’s commandoes were among the forces conducting a clearance operation and an intermittent exchange of fire went on into Tuesday, Mahsud said.
The administrative block is away from the building housing hundreds of cadets and other staff.
The Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, denied involvement in the college attack. The group has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban seized power in Kabul in 2021, and many of its leaders and fighters are believed to have taken refuge in Afghanistan.
– with additional input from AP News
