Muslims urged to kill reporter
2002-11-26 15:32
Kano, Nigeria - A mainly Muslim state in northern Nigeria has pronounced a "fatwa" urging believers to kill the author of an article on the Miss World pageant which was seen as insulting to the Prophet Mohammed, a state spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Zamfara State information commissioner Umar Dangaladima said the fatwa - an Islamic religious decree - had been confirmed against fashion writer Isioma Daniel, whose article sparked three days of bloody sectarian riots.
"The state government did not on its own pass the fatwa," he said. "It's a fact that Islam prescribes the death penalty on anybody, no matter his faith, who insults the Prophet.
"Therefore the state government has retained this verdict as it applies to Isioma. This is our position," he said.
Zamfara's deputy governor Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi said late on Monday in a speech to religious leaders in the Zamfara State capital Gusau and rebroadcast on state radio: "Like Salman Rushdie, the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed."
"It is binding on all Muslims wherever they are to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty," he said, adding that the fatwa had been decided at a meeting between the state government and 21 Islamic youth organisations.
A fatwa is a legal statement in Islam, issued by a mufti or a religious lawyer after reference to precedents to decide on an issue of jurisprudence. It is not binding in Nigerian state law, but can be influential among Muslims.
Resigned
Zamfara is one of 12 mainly Muslim states in northern Nigeria which have reintroduced the strict Sharia Islamic legal code since the country's return to civilian rule in 1999.
Nigeria's federal government regards Islamic criminal law as unconstitutional, but the issue has never been resolved in court.
Daniel resigned from the newspaper This Day after fury erupted over an article she authored on November 16 on the Miss World beauty pageant, in which she suggested that the Prophet Mohammed might not have opposed its being held in Nigeria.
"The Muslims thought it was immoral to bring 92 women to Nigeria to ask them to revel in vanity. What would Mohammed think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from one of them," she wrote.
This Day apologised for the story the next day, claiming that an editor had tried to cut the offending passage before publication and had been let down by technology, but the damage was done and many Muslims were furious at the perceived slur.
On Wednesday a group of Muslim youths burned down This Day's local offices in the religiously mixed northern city of Kaduna, an attack that proved to be a prelude to three days of sectarian violence which left around 220 people dead.
Pagaent left Nigeria
At the weekend the contestants and organisers of the Miss World pageant left Nigeria under a storm of disastrous publicity surrounding the violence, and the show has now been moved to London.
Last week the state security service announced it had issued arrest warrants for Daniel and her editor on the Saturday edition of the daily, Simon Kolawole.
Late on Monday, in an interview with CNN, President Olusegun Obasanjo blamed the This Day article for starting the riots and putting paid to Nigeria's ambition to host the pageant.
The managing director for This Day, Victor Ifijeh, said on Tuesday that Kolawole was still in custody after his arrest but that the paper hoped he would be freed soon.
Daniel, he said, had voluntarily tendered her resignation and was believed to be at her home, not having surrendered herself to the authorities. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA