Nigerian musician handed death sentence for blasphemy
Nigerian Islamic gospel singer Yahaya Sharif-Aminu was sentenced to death by hanging for composing a song that was pronounced blasphemous against the Prophet Muhammad.
Sharif-Aminu’s sentence was reported by the BBC on 10 August. The 22-year-old musician, who lives in Nigeria’s Northern State of Kano, was sentenced by an upper Sharia court in the Hausawa Filin Hockey area for a song he circulated via WhatsApp in March.
Following the circulation, protesters burnt down his family house and demanded his arrest. The leader of the protesters, Idris Ibrahim, told the BBC that the judgement would serve as a warning to others "contemplating toeing Yahaya's path."
"When I heard about the judgment I was so happy because it showed our protest wasn't in vain," Ibrahim said. "This [judgement] will serve as a deterrent to others who feel they could insult our religion or prophet and go scot-free."
The protesters also criticised the government’s stance, which they said was indifferent to such matters. Ibrahim also told local newspaper The Punch that their “mission is to alert the government to do the needful; otherwise, we will take the law into our own hands.”
Sharif-Aminu is currently detained and has not denied the charges. However, Judge Khadi Aliyu Muhammad Kani said the singer can appeal the ruling. Until his arrest, the musician had gone into seclusion following the release of the song. Before his arrest in March, Sharif-Aminu was not well known in the region and his songs were not popular outside his Tijjaniya sect, who have many such musicians within their ranks.
States across Muslim-majority northern Nigeria use both secular law and Sharia law, which does not apply to non-Muslims. Members of the Tijjaniya are said to prefer Ibrahim Nyass, a leader of the Tijānī Sufi order of Islam in West Africa, over Muhammad.
A number of death sentences have been passed in Nigeria’s Sharia courts, but only one has been carried out since they were reintroduced in 1999. The last time a Nigerian Sharia court passed a death sentence was in 2016 when Abdulazeez Inyass was sentenced to death for blaspheming against Islam after a secret trial in Kano.
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