First paragraph (Teaser):

This is a message from BAOBAB, an organization for Women's
Human Rights in Nigeria.

Rest of the text:

Please Stop the International Amina Lawal Protest Letter Campaigns. If you want to know how to help Amina and BAOBAB, please read the end of the article.

Dear friends,

There has been a whole host of petitions and letter writing campaigns about
Amina Lawal (sentenced to stoning to death for adultery in August 2002).
Many of these are inaccurate and ineffective and may even be damaging to
her case and those of others in similar situations. BAOBAB for Women's
Human Rights, which is responsible for initiating and continuing to support
the defences of cases like Ms. Lawal's, thanks the world for its support
and concern, but requests that you please stop the Amina Lawal
international protest letter campaigns for now (May 2003). The information
currently circulated is inaccurate, and the situation in Nigeria, being
volatile, will not be helped by such campaigns. At the end of this letter,
we indicate ways in which you can help us and we hope we can count on your
continuing support.

Clarification of Facts

First, we would like to pass on some facts that hopefully will clarify the
situation somewhat. Contrary to information being widely circulated, Amina
Lawal's conviction has NOT been upheld by Nigeria's Supreme Court. Ms.
Lawal was originally convicted by an Upper Area Court in Katsina State in
northern Nigeria. Her appeal is currently before the Katsina State Sharia
Court of Appeal. The appeal had been several times postponed. However the
next appeal hearing has now been set for June 3, 2003. Should this appeal
not succeed, Ms. Lawal would appeal to the (Nigerian Federal) Sharia Court
of Appeal. Only if unsuccessful at the federal appeal court also would Ms.
Lawal's case go to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. In other words, the
process is a long way from immediate stoning to death. Although the stress
on Ms. Lawal is obviously considerable and awful, she is not in immediate
danger of a judicial execution.

Furthermore, so far, not one appeal that has been taken up by BAOBAB and
supporting local NGOs in Nigeria has been lost. All the completed appeals
processes have been successful. Again, so far, all these appeals have been
won in local state Sharia courts - none have yet needed to go up to the
Federal Sharia Court of Appeal, from whence appeals would go to the Supreme
Court. (We do note, however, that there is still work to be done at this
level, as sometimes the judges have chosen to quash on technicalities, thus
avoiding the substantive grounds of the appeals. However, we note also
that historically, the State Sharia Courts of Appeal, and especially the
Federal Sharia Court of Appeal, have passed judgements that are more
gender-fair ? in marked contrast to the lower courts where all of these
convictions were passed).

Contrary to the statements in many of the internationally originated
appeals for petitions and protest letters, none of the victims received a
pardon as a result of international pressure. None of them has received a
pardon at all ? or needed to, so far.

None of the sentences of stoning to death have been carried out. Either
the appeals were successful or those convicted are still in the appeals
process.

Dangers of Letter Writing Campaigns?

However, if there is an immediate physical danger to Ms. Lawal and others,
it is from vigilante and political further (over)reaction to international
attempts at pressure. This has happened already in the case of Bariya
Magazu, the unmarried teenager convicted of zina (extra-marital sex) and
sentenced to flogging in Zamfara in 1999. Ms. Magazu's sentence was quite
illegally brought forward with no notice, despite the earlier assurances of
the trial judge that the sentence would not be carried out for at least a
year. She was told the night before that it would be carried out very
early the next morning (and thus had no way of contacting anyone for help
even if this unschooled and poor rural teenager had access to a telephone
or organizing knowledge and experience), whilst the state bureaucracy had
been instructed to obstruct and was physically refusing to take the appeal
papers from BAOBAB's lawyers. The extra-legal carrying out of the sentence
was not despite national and international pressure; it was deliberately to
defy it. The Governor of Zamfara State boasted of his resistance to "these
letters from infidels" ? even to sniggering over how many letters he had
received. Thus, we would like you to recognise that an international
protest letter campaign is not necessarily the most productive way to act
in every situation. On the contrary, women's rights defenders should
assess potential backlash effects before devising strategies.

Problems with Petitions based on Inaccurate Information

Even when protests are appropriate forms of action, when they are obviously
based on inaccuracies of fact they are easier to ignore.
Circulating protests and writing letters based on inaccurate informationmay
further damage the situation instead of helping. They certainly damage the
credibility of the local activists, who are assumed to have supplied this
information. If we remember that it is local activists who most facilitate
turning rights principles into everyday reality for people, then reducing
the ability and potential of local activists to carry out women's and human
rights promotion and defence is a counter-productive mode of proceeding.
Please check the accuracy of the information with local activists, before
further circulating petitions or responding to them.

Re-Presenting negative stereotypes of Islam and Muslims

Dominant colonialist discourses and the mainstream international media have
presented Islam (and Africa) as the barbaric and savage Other. Please do
not buy into this. Accepting stereotypes that present Islam as incompatible
with human rights not only perpetuates racism but also confirms the claims
of right-wing politico-religious extremists in all of our contexts. We
appreciate that many who join letter writing campaigns are motivated by the
same sense of international solidarity and feminist outrage that leads us
at BAOBAB to participate in international actions. But when protest letters
re-present negative stereotypes of Islam and Muslims, they inflame
sentiments rather than encouraging reflection and strengthening local
progressive movements. They may result in behaviour such as that of the
Zamfara State governor over Bariya Magazu, or even more threatening,
hostile and violent behaviour by vigilantes (in extra-legal acts by
non-state actors like the hordes of young unemployed men who are the bulk
of the vigilantes). Consequently, such letters can put in further danger
both the victims who are easily reachable in their home communities, and,
the activists and lawyers supporting them (who are particularly vulnerable
when they have to walk through hostile crowds on their way to court, for
instance).

Muslim discourses and the invocation of Islam have been used both to
vindicate and protect women s rights in some places and times, and to
violate and restrict them in other places and times - as in the present
case. The same can be said of many, many other religions and discourses
(for example, Christianity, capitalism, socialism, modernization to name
but a few). The point is for us to question who is invoking Islam (or
whatever belief/discourse) for what purposes, and also to acknowledge and
support internal dissent within the community involved, rather than
engaging in a wholesale condemnation of peoples' beliefs and cultures,
which is seldom accurate or effective in changing views within the affected
community. Please be sensitive to these concerns in any protest letters
you may write.

Supporting Local Pressures

There is a place for international pressure and campaigns. We would not
risk anyone's life by insisting on never having an international campaign.
However, using international protest appeals as the automatic response
reduces its usefulness as an advocacy tool.We feel that this is not the
time for an international letter writing campaign, but we are concerned
that should the situation change, and we then need international pressure
and ask for international support, the moral energy and indignation of the
world may already have been spent - resulting in campaign fatigue (been
there, done that already).

International letter writing campaigns have specific potential that can be
spectacularly successful (as in the case of Fatima Yacoub in Tchad in the
mid-1990s). However, they are not appropriate in this campaign at this
time. This is not one individual case. Not all the cases of conviction
have made the international headlines or even the national media. They
cannot all become international causes célèbres and subjects for
letter-writing protests. Veryfew people know the name of Hafsatu Abubakar,
the first woman to be acquitted after appealing a stoning to death
sentence, nor any of the other 8 women and 10 youths whose current cases
BAOBAB is also dealing with, for instance).

Using local structures and mechanisms (as a means of resisting
retrogressive laws or interpretations of laws and the forces behind them)
is the priority. It strengthens local counter-discourses and often carries
greater legitimacy than 'outside' pressure. Further, it can really address
the local political power struggles that are behind the political use of
religions and ethnicities in Nigeria. The political Islamists and
vigilantes threaten (andcarry out) acts of violence against those who
criticise them, in order to intimidate people. But they have also been
promoting the view that any criticism or appeal of conviction is anti-Islam
and tantamount to apostasy, and thereby trying to get people to submit
quietly and voluntarily. One of the means of countering this was our
choice to pursue the appeals in the Sharia system, and thereby demonstrate
that people have a right to appeal and to challenge injustices, including
those made in the name of Islam.

Every appeal in the local sharia courts strengthens this process. Since
the first cases, that of Bariya Magazu, (where BAOBAB had to convince her
family and various opinion-leaders in the village to agree to an appeal)
and the Jangedi case (where a man convicted of theft refused to appeal and
had his hand amputated), many victims have no longer acquiesced to
injustices, but actively sought help. Furthermore, in both Safiya Husseini
Tungar-Tudu's and Amina Lawal's cases, members of their community have
spoken about the abuse of Sharia and taken actions to protect them from
local vigilantes. These are actions that would not have happened when
BAOBAB first started this work in 1999. At that time, even finding a
lawyer from the Muslim community willing to represent the victim was not
easy.

Winning appeals in the Sharia courts, as we and others have done,
establishes that convictions should not have been made. A pardon means
that people are guilty but the state is forgiving them for it. It does not
have the same moral and political resonance. A pardon that is perceived as
occurring as a result of outside pressure is even less likely to convince
the community of its rightness. If we don't want such abuses to go on and
on, then we have to convince the community not to accept injustices even
when perpetrated in the name of strongly held beliefs.

Deciding on Strategies to Fight Injustices

We are asking for international solidarity strategies that respect the
analyses and agency of those activists most closely involved and in touch
with the issues on the ground and the wishes of the women and men directly
suffering rights violations. Thelocal groups in Nigeria directly
representing victims (in the lead of whom are BAOBAB for Women's Human
Rights and WRAPA ? Women's Rights Advancement and Protection Agency) have
specifically asked that there NOT be international letter writing
campaigns. When victims of human rights abuses are held incommunicado,
then clearly all anyone can do is act on our own beliefs to try and help
them. This is not such a situation. The victims are not in detention (and
indeed give press interviews). They have chosen to appeal and accepted
the assistance of NGOs like BAOBAB, WRAPA and the networks of Nigerian
women's and human rights NGOs that support them. There is an unbecoming
arrogance in assuming that international human rights organisations or
others always know better than those directly involved, and therefore can
take actions that fly in the face of their express wishes. Of course,
there is always the possibility that those directly involved are wrong but
surely the course of action is to persuade them of the correctness of one's
analysis and strategies, rather than ignore their wishes. They at least
have to live directly with the consequences of any wrong decisions that
they take. Please do liaise with those whose rights have been violated
and/or local groups directly involved to discuss strategies of solidarity
and support before launching campaigns.

So how can people and other organisations help?

In the immediate, resources (money but not only money) are needed to
support both the victims directly and the appeal processes. The victims ?
almost all of them poor, and most also rural dwellers - have found that
theirlives and work and those of their families are disrupted. They are
economically hard hit, as well as under considerable social pressure.
Often their health (physical and psychological) suffers as a result of
stress. Sometimes a safe house is needed in the face of threats from
vigilantes - there are no institutional ones in northern Nigeria. It may
be necessary to consider safe asylum (bearing in mind issues like travel
documents, visas, costs and how government bureaucracies will react).
Resources are needed for living expenses for victims, their dependents and
families, and to deal with stress-related consequences (counselling
support, medical treatments and drugs amongst them), and to deal with
safety and security. Experience and strategy-sharing with other groups
who have dealt with similar situations supporting victims through an
appeals process and campaign would also be most welcome.

Then there are the costs of fighting the appeals. Obviously there are
legal costs. These include court fees and lawyers' fees. (Not all lawyers
are willing or financially able to work completely pro bono. Even when they
donate their expertise, they may have to be paid for court appearances,
travel and subsistence expenses). They also include costs in document
preparation especially in multiple copies and so on. There are also a
whole series of associated costs. Fighting appeals is person and
time-intensive. Activists have to; check media and local networks to find
victims; travel to offer support to victims; draw on networks to find
lawyers willing to represent victims; convene and participate in strategy
sessions (yet more travel as these are often national); prepare the
arguments and documentation; travel to the court with the victims; engage
in victim support (discuss their situations and the possible options and
ramifications, deal with consequential issues like loss of land, or
ill-health, provide emotional support); liaise with and service the local
and international networks supporting such work; not to mention write the
reports and analyses constantly required. Resources to support all this
work is needed.

Women's rights activists working on these issues very early on received
support from progressive lawyers, Islamic scholars and rights activists
from throughout Nigeria, the Muslim world and elsewhere, in the form of
legal and religious argumentation (fiqh), case law examples and strategies
which were generously shared. We would like to acknowledge this help and
support - it has been extremely useful and we can probably never have
enough of it.

For the long-term, there are two needs to work on: constructing the
cultures of recognizing rights and fighting violations at the local and
national levels; and, to develop argumentation and advocacy to change the
laws, evidence requirements and procedures.

In sum, funding for credible organizations doing both immediate and
long-term work is urgently needed.

Exchanges of information, experiences and knowledge in similar situations
would also be helpful.

Practical offer of safe havens ? outside the community but within Nigeria,
and, outside of Nigeria may also be needed.

Finally, do please circulate this message widely ? including to all the
list-servs and networks where petitions based on inaccurate information
have been circulated. If you would share and discuss this message with
other activists and organisations who have demonstrated their solidarity on
these cases, that would be helpful.

Respectfully

Ayesha Imam (Board Member)

Sindi Medar-Gould (Executive Director)

BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights

BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights has been closely involved with defending
the rights of women, men and children in Muslim, customary and secular laws
? and in particular of those convicted under the new Sharia Criminal
legislation acts passed in Nigeria since 2000. In fact, BAOBAB was the
first (and for several months the only) NGO with members from the Muslim
community, who were willing to speak publicly against retrogressive
versions of Muslim laws and to work on changing the dominant conservative
understanding of the rights of women in enacted Sharia (Muslim religious
laws), as well as in customary and secular laws. BOABAB was also the
first, and again for some time the only NGO to actually find the victims
and support their appeals, raising funds for the costs and putting together
a strategy team of women's and human rights activists, lawyers and Islamic
scholars contributing their expertise and time voluntarily. BAOBAB for
Women's Human Rights was the 2002 recipient of the John Humphrey Freedom
Award for this work. BAOBAB's work was also recently cited by the Special
Rapporteur on Violence Against Women as an example of best practice.

If you would like to support BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights work, please
send a check/cheque or international money order made out to:

a)BAOBAB / WLUML-AME Legal Defence Fund (supports the immediate costs
victims and appeals process); and/or

b)BAOBAB / WLUML-AME Rights Advocacy Fund (supports the long-term work in
enabling the critique of the rights in Muslim laws, as in customary and
secular laws, and to work on the reconstruction of rights in law and
practice); and/or

c)BAOBAB / WLUML-AME Core Funding (enables flexibility in usage ? it must
still be accounted for and reported on)

These should be sent to:

BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights

P O Box 73630 PMB 134, P O Box 28445
or or
London N19 5JT
Victoria Island 1333A North Avenue
UK
Lagos, New Rochelle

Nigeria NY 10804, USA

These should be sent to any of the following addresses:
BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights
P O Box 73630
Victoria Island
Lagos,
Nigeria

Or

BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights
PMB 134,
1333A North Avenue
New Rochelle
NY 10804, USA

Or

BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights
P O Box 28445
London N19 5JT
UK

hlink.net> cc :
Objet : Please Stop the
International Amina Lawal Protest Letter Campaigns
03/05/01 14:23