Join the Petition to End the Torture of women in northern Nigeria
His Excellency
Dr Rufai A O SOULE
High Commissioner for the Federal Republic of Nigeria
26 Guilfoyle Street
Yarralumla ACT 2600
Your Excellency,
I am deeply concerned about the pernicious effects on human beings and on their rights of the introduction of the new Sharia- based Penal Codes in Northern Nigeria. These new codes establish the death penalty for crimes such as adultery and introduce cruel, inhumane and degrading punishments such as flogging and amputation.
All these punishments are in breach of international human rights instruments signed and ratified by your Government, for that reason, I kindly call on your Government to take all necessary measures to secure respect for the rule of law in every part of Nigeria which includes respect for the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and punishment, such as the practice of corporal punishment. The Nigerian government should also make death penalty a thing of the past.
The government of Nigeria must also ensure that no-one is discriminated against before the law on grounds of his or her religion, sex or social status.
I also call on the Federal Government of the Republic of Nigeria to exert in due time its prerogative of mercy to ensure that Amina Lawal, and all the people who have been sentenced to death under any penal legislation in Nigeria, are not executed under any circumstance. All of them have the right to a fair trial, including the right of appeal.
I hope people will go to this site and sign this petition. I have posted it so you can see what you are going to sign and why. Sharia again! Barbaric!
Torture of women prisoners is a widespread practice. Between mid-1997 and October 2001, 146 women sought the help of a legal aid project in Istanbul for women raped and sexually abused in custody.
On 21 March 2001, a trial opened in Istanbul in which 19 people are now charged with having "insulted the security forces" in a conference in June 2000.
Their crime? Denouncing the rape of women in police custody. The accused, who include victims of rape in custody, their lawyers and the father of a victim, had participated in the "Congress against Sexual Assault and Rape in Custody".
Some of the defendants now face long prison sentences for having spoken out about their ordeals, while the perpetrators of rape in custody go unpunished.
