Death Penalty News

A woman was burned alive this weekend by a Muslim mob for allegedly blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad, Islam's holiest figure, in Niger State, central Nigeria, police said Monday.  The woman was burned alive on Saturday in a mob attack after making remarks deemed blasphemous against the Prophet in the Kasuwan-Garba community in Mariga district, Niger State Police spokesman Wasiu Abiodun said in a statement.

Five men have been sentenced to death by hanging in Nigeria's Kano state for the 2023 murder of a woman they accused of witchcraft. The convicted men attacked Dahare Abubakar, 67, as she was working on her farm, beating and stabbing her to death. Ms Abubakar's family went to the authorities and the suspects were swiftly arrested in a village 45km (28 miles) from Kano - the largest city in northern Nigeria. The case gained attention across the country and raised discussions over how people in rural areas continue to be murdered following witchcraft accusations.

The Senate, yesterday, passed a bill which upgraded the maximum sentence of life imprisonment to death penalty for manufacturers of hard drugs. The legislation, titled: ‘National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act (Amendment Bill) 2024’ passed a third reading at the Senate, yesterday.  The Bill sought to review penalties provision, update the list of dangerous drugs, strengthen the operations of the NDLEA, and empower the NDLEA to establish laboratories. 

13 countries have the death penalty for blasphemy or apostasy Humanists UK is dismayed by the news that the Danish parliament has banned the ‘inappropriate treatment’ of religious texts. Those falling foul of this regressive law will now face a fine or up to two years in prison. Humanists UK says that this is a de facto blasphemy law that fuels intolerance. Six years ago, Denmark became the fifth European country to abolish its blasphemy laws since Humanists UK co-founded the End Blasphemy Coalition . In February 2017, a man was charged for posting a video of himself burning a copy of the Quran. Up until this point, attempts to bring alleged blasphemy cases to court had been dismissed by prosecutors on the grounds of protecting free speech and the law had been considered dead letter for nearly 50 years. Its reactivation sparked a national debate, renewing calls for the law to be abolished, and that call was successful in June 2017.

I’ve long spoken up against the death penalty, a punishment so cruel, inhumane, and riddled with error and malice that it should have no place in our modern world. Its proponents claim it deters crime, yet nothing could be further from the truth – and study after study refutes that claim. Look anywhere in the 55 countries that retain the practice: the death penalty doesn’t make communities safer, has no noticeable impact on crime rates, whilst wasting precious resources that could be better used elsewhere.  

LAGOS, Oct 9 (Reuters) - A Nigerian court on Monday sentenced to death a police officer convicted of shooting dead a pregnant female lawyer on Christmas Day in 2022, likely igniting debate on the place of the death penalty in Africa's most populous country. Nigeria has at least 3,000 people on death row, according to Amnesty International, but executions are rare, which has led to calls by some rights groups to abolish the death sentence. The Lagos State High Court had in January put on murder trial police officer Drambi Vandi who was accused of shooting Bolanle Raheem, who was pregnant with twins, at close range.

More than 100 people were arrested for attending a gay wedding in Nigeria under the country’s draconian homosexuality laws. Police stormed a hotel in Ekpan town, Delta state, southern Nigeria, at around 2am on Monday and arrested more than 100 “gay suspects”. At least sixty-seven people have been detained. Two of those detained in the arrests, one of the country’s largest targeting homosexuality, got married at the event, Delta State Command spokesman Bright Edafe told a press conference.

It may have started as a row with another stallholder in the market or perhaps with a remark to a beggar. But while the beginning is unclear, how the day’s events unfolded and its tragic denouement have become all too familiar in northern Nigeria – not least because the mob that murdered Usman Buda filmed him being stoned to death . Buda, a butcher and father of six, was the latest person to be lynched for ‘blaspheming’ in Sokoto, one of 12 among Nigeria’s 36 states to adopt sharia law in 2000. The Associated Press reported that it began as an argument with another trader. The accusation of blasphemy – whether true or not – quickly led to ‘a large crowd that included children pelting stones at Buda on the floor as they cursed him’.

Young children are seen participating in the murder actively, with no adult trying to prevent the children from throwing stones or even trying to prevent them from watching the bloody murder. Usman Buda, the deceased victim, worked as a butcher in the local market. In a disturbing and shocking incident from Nigeria’s Sokoto, a mob has brutally stoned a man to death over allegations of ‘blasphemy’. As per reports, the deceased person Usman Buda worked as a butcher in an abattoir in Sokoto city.  Locals accused him of blasphemous comments against Prophet Mohammad on Sunday, June 25.

Sub-Saharan African countries have seen a 67% fall in capital punishment, from 33 in 2021 to just 11 last year, and a 20% drop in death penalty sentences, from 373 to 298 over the same period, Amnesty International (AI) said in its latest report. South Sudan executed five people - down from nine in 2021 - and Somalia, which in 2021 carried out 21 executions, only had six last year. Botswana which had executed one person in 2021, didn't conduct any last year. In the whole African continent, recorded death sentences decreased by 20%, from 373 in 2021 to 298 in 2022.  Death sentences recorded in 16 countries last year, down three from 2021.  According to the report, the 20% drop in recorded death sentences was due to notable reductions in the following countries in 2022 compared to 2021:  Botswana (6 to 1); Cameroon (4 to 0); Democratic Republic of the Congo (81 to 76); Malawi (11 to 0); Mali (48 to 8); Somalia (27 to 10); Sierra Leone (23 to 0); South Sudan (10 to 4); Sudan...

A Nigerian Shariah court has sentenced a prominent Sufi Muslim cleric to death for blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad in a rare capital punishment ruling against an imam. The Upper Shariah court sentenced Sheikh Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara for what was seen as his revisionist preaching. Blasphemy is a sensitive issue that can lead to a death sentence in a dozen predominantly Muslim states in northern Nigeria, where Islamic law operates alongside common law. Death sentences are rarely carried out. Judge Abdullahi Sarki Yola found Kabara guilty of blasphemy. He had been in custody since his arrest in July 2021. "This court has established all the charges brought against you and hereby sentences you to death in accordance with Shariah provision on blasphemy," Yola said during the hourlong judgment. The judge ordered the confiscation of Kabara's two mosques and his personal library. Kabara sat quietly throughout the judgment in the courtroom packed with lawyers and journali...

Kano singer who was given the death penalty for blasphemy will be tried again – Appeal Court A musician who was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad was given a new trial by the Court of Appeal in Kano on Wednesday. Aminu Yahaya-Sharif, a 24-year-old singer from Sharifai in Kano city, was charged with blasphemy against the Islamic prophet in a song that he distributed via WhatsApp in March 2020. After being found guilty of all charges, he was given the death penalty by the Hausawa Filin Hockey-based Kano Upper Shari’a Court in August 2020. Judge Aliyu Kani found him guilty based on Section 382(b) of the Kano Penal Code of 2000. The death sentence was overturned by the Kano State High Court’s appellate division on January 21, 2021, and a new trial by the same shariah court was mandated. A panel of two justices from the High Court, including the Chief Judge of Kano State, Nuraddeen Umar, and Nasiru Saminu, identified anomalies in the prior trial conducted by th...

The judge who said the duo deserved no mercy sentenced them to death after they pleaded guilty to killing the 7-year-old. An Ikeja Special Offences Court on Tuesday, August 9, 2022, sentenced one Pastor Erinmole Adetokunbo and one Adedoyin Oyekanmi to death for killing a seven-year-old boy for ritual purposes. Reports reaching Alimoshotoday state that the judge sentenced the duo to death after they pleaded guilty to the two-count charge brought against them by the state government. The convicts were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and murder, by the Lagos state government on October 30, 2017. The prosecution alleged that the convicts committed the offences on June 7, 2017, in the Odokekere area of Ikorodu in Lagos state, adding that the duo cut off the child’s head and buried it on a `church’ altar and threw the body into a canal. Although the accused persons initially pleaded not guilty upon arraignment, at the court session on Monday, August 8, 2022, O.A. Bajulaiye, the pros...

Activists in Nigeria have condemned the death sentences given by an Islamic court to 3 men for homosexual acts. The ruling in Nigeria's northern state of Bauchi was the latest in a series of controversial death sentences by Sharia courts. In a ruling last week, Judge Munka’ilu Sabo Ningi sentenced 3 men to death by stoning on charges of homosexuality. The men are ages 20, 30, and 70 and were arrested on June 14. They were not represented in court by a lawyer before pleading guilty to the charges against them. The ruling has sparked criticism from LGBTQ and human rights activists. One activist, Kayode Somtochukwu Ani, said he fears the sentencing could trigger mob action against homosexuals in northern Nigeria. "We had this crossdressing bill introduced in April, and now we're having 3 people sentenced to death by stoning in 2022,” Ani said. “It's getting out of hand, the fear that northern LGBTQ people have to live in at this moment." Ani, who heads the Queer Unio...

A Nigerian high court has sentenced a Danish national, Peter Nielsen, to death by hanging. Nielsen was convicted and sentenced Friday for the murder of his Nigerian wife and their young daughter in 2018. Rights activists, who have protested the murder, praised the court's ruling. Justice Bolanle Okikiolu-Ighile of the Lagos high court announced the verdict and the sentence for 54-year-old Peter Nielsen Friday at a hearing that lasted more than 5 hours. The justice said evidence from an autopsy revealed that Nielsen's wife, Zainab, and their three-year-old daughter died of head injuries and suffocation. He said analysis of Zainab’s fingertips showed she had struggled to free herself from her killer’s grip, and that traces of DNA found on her skin were consistent with Nielsen’s. Nielsen has been standing trial since June 2018 after he was arrested on charges of murdering his Nigerian wife, Zainab and their daughter in their home in Lagos.  Nielsen pleaded not guilty to the charge...

A number of leading LGBT organisations have called on 11 countries to end the threat of the death penalty as a punishment for queer people. ILGA Asia, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and 5 other organisations condemned the use of violence against LGBT people in a statement issued to mark International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), which takes place on Tuesday (17 May). In the statement, the LGBT organisations note that 70 countries around the world continue to criminalise same-sex sexual conduct, including 22 Asian countries. Islam, sharia ILGA Asia said 11 countries – Afghanistan, Brunei, Darussalam, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen – retain the death penalty for LGBT people. Eight of those countries are in Asia. According to Human Dignity Trust, the death penalty is implemented in Iran, Northern Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen, and remains a “legal possibility” i...