SESSION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

05-09-2002

INTERVENTION BY ANNA KARAMANOU ON THE CASE OF AMINA LAWAL

Mr. President, Mr. Commissioner, I would like to express in the strongest terms my disgust and horror at what has been happening in the northern provinces of Nigeria over the past two years, where Islamists have imposed Sharia law over the country’s laws and international law. And I ask myself: how is it possible for women to be sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, while men are not, in a country that has ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, in a country that has ratified the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in a country with which the European Union has close ties under the Cotonou Agreement?

Is it possible that the federal government of Nigeria cannot impose respect for the country’s own Constitution by the Islamists? What is the role of the President in this country when he cannot guarantee the fundamental freedoms and human rights of his citizens? I find it hard to believe, Mr. Patten, that intolerance, obscurantism, and misogyny can prevail over logic and human values. I cannot accept that the Union does not have the means to prevent criminal practices against women, and that in this case, we cannot compel the federal government of Nigeria to enforce the laws across its entire territory.

Today we should send a very strong message from this room to Nigeria, but also to other countries where crimes against women are committed, because we are informed by the press that there are also death sentences by stoning in Iran. We should tell the fundamentalists everywhere that no tradition and

no culture is legitimized to violate the rights of half of humanity. That is why we are asking here and now for the immediate release of Amina Lawal.