-Caveat Lector-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2518159.stm
Wednesday, 27 November, 2002, 11:24 GMT
Fatwa journalist 'flees Nigeria'
Thousands were left homeless by the violence
Fashion writer Isioma Daniel is reported to have left Nigeria after calls for her to be
killed for insulting the Prophet Mohammed.
Colleagues at ThisDay newspaper say she is now in the United States, according to
Reuters news agency.
On Tuesday, authorities in the northern state of Zamfara issued what they said was a
"fatwa", urging Muslims to kill her for writing the article, which sparked religious
riots
in the northern city of Kaduna.
At least 220 people were killed in several days of clashes between the city's Muslims
and Christians. Kaduna is now reported to be calm.
A fatwa is a religious decree which is normally made by an Islamic scholar but a
spokesman for Zamfara state said that any leader could issue one.
Opinion is divided among Muslim leaders about whether the Zamfara fatwa is indeed
valid.
Some say that because Ms Daniel has apologised and also resigned from her job,
she does not deserve to be killed.
Political divide
The new journalism graduate wrote an article in response to Muslim objections to
Nigeria's hosting of the Miss World beauty contest, saying that the Prophet
Mohammed would not have complained about the pageant and indeed, may have
chosen to marry one of the beauty queens.
This infuriated many Muslims, who destroyed ThisDay's Kaduna office and went on
to burn down churches and hotels last week.
Correspondents say this is the latest example of a split between politicians in the
Muslim north and the federal government, which is largely made up of southern
Christians.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, a born-again Christian, is seeking re-election next
year.
The federal government has said that it will not allow the death sentence to be
carried but no action is being taken against the deputy governor of Zamfara state.
'Null and void'
Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi told religious leaders in Zamfara state capital, Gusau: "Like
Salman Rushdie, the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed."
The speech was rebroadcast on local radio in Zamfara state, which was the first
state in Nigeria to introduce Islamic law in January 2000.
"It is binding on all Muslims wherever they are, to consider the killing of the writer
as
a religious duty".
The Miss World contest was moved to London after the riots.
A Muslim cleric in the capital, Abuja, said that Ms Daniel could only escape the death
penalty by converting to Islam.
Hussein Muhammed told the BBC Focus on Africa programme that if he saw her, he
would kill her, even if that meant going to prison because Islamic law is more
important to him than Nigerian law.
"I would be willing to kill my parents for Mohammed," he said.
But other Muslim leaders have a different view.
"ThisDay newspaper has apologised on her (Ms Daniel's) behalf, so the fatwa has to
be withdrawn," Kaduna-based Islamic scholar Ali Alkali told Reuters.
Ann Cooper, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists said: "We are extremely concerned about her safety. In this whole
controversy, I think something that has been completely lost is the universal right to
free expression."
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A columnist in the Guardian, the wonderfully named Ros Coward,
argued that the West should respond to attacks on free speech by
avoiding offense to bigots: "The Nigeria debacle shows how naive
people are about this divide between cultures, especially in a post-
Sept. 11 world. A culture where a woman can be stoned to death for
adultery clearly contains elements that will not be entranced by a
parade of female flesh or the 'modernity' it promises. To hold the
contest during Ramadan compounds the insult." Do any of these female
journalists worry in print about a fatwa being pronounced on another
female journalist, who has succeeded in her work despite being
in a brutally misogynist culture? Not so far. Her right to write
freely seems not as important as sensitivity to other cultures.
~~Andrew Sullivan
http://www.salon.com/news/col/sullivan/2002/11/27/nigeria/index.html
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