Fwd: Please Stop the International Amina Lawal Protest LetterCampaigns

[Cristiana Scoppa <cscoppa@lcnet.it>]

Title: Fwd: Please Stop the International Amina Lawal Protest

Salve,

vi giro questa e-mail ricevuta dalle nostre partner in Nigeria.  Mi sembra importante ascoltare le nostre sorelle africane. Questa campagna ha gi� avuto effetti negativi non piccoli, come ho avuto modo di riferire in alcune occasioni. Un cordiale saluto

Cristiana Scoppa

AIDOS

Associazione italiana donne per lo sviluppo

> From: "Ayesha Imam"
> <AyeshaImam@earthlink.net>
> To: <AyeshaImam@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Please Stop the International Amina Lawal Protest Letter
> Campaigns
> Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 11:12:10 -0400
> X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
> Importance: Normal
> Please Stop the International
> Amina Lawal Protest Letter Campaigns
>  
> Dear friends,
>  
> There have 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
> information may 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 c�l�bres and subjects for
> letter-writing protests. 
> (Very few 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 (and carry 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. 
> The local 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 their lives 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 
> 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
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>

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