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Africa
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Muslim Group Backtracks
("The Daily News," August 14, 2003)
A MUSLIM group that last week gave the government 60 days to revise the country's Christian-biased education curriculum or face legal action yesterday backtracked on its demand saying it had not consulted Zimbabwe's muslim community before issuing the ultimatum.
A lawyer for the Islamic Convent of the Strict Observance (ICSO), Lewis Uriri, last night told the Daily News that the ICSO would apologise to fellow Muslims for issuing the ultimatum and that further action on the issue would only be taken after full consultation with Muslims in the country.
Uriri said: "I still have to put the issue in writing but my understanding is that the group has decided basically not to go ahead with the whole thing. ICSO do not purport to represent the entire Muslim community.
"The position they have put forward is solely the position of itself and does not in any way represent the official position of the Council of Islamic Scholars."
ICSO last week demanded that the government change Zimbabwe's Christian-influenced school curriculum or it would apply to the Supreme Court for an order outlawing as unconstitutional the almost mandatory teaching of Christian subjects and the reciting of the Lord's Prayer at school.
The group said some of its members had been forced to withdraw their children from exclusively Muslim but expensive private schools because of steep fee increases.
They said they had enrolled their children at relatively cheaper government-run institutions where mostly Christian-based values are observed.
In an interview earlier yesterday Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere rejected the demand saying Muslims could build their own schools, which he said the government would register.
Chigwedere said: "We accept the existence of the minority and their rights and we are not against their religion. But it will be foolhardy for them to expect us to transform a whole school curriculum to cater for two Muslim pupils at, say, Goromonzi, Marondera or St George's High schools.
"If Muslims feel that a school is not catering for their interests, they are at liberty to establish their schools which we will register."
The vast majority of black Zimbabweans are Christians although most also practise traditional African religion. There is also a variety of other religions including Buddhism. The country's British-drafted Constitution guarantees freedom of worship.
Nigeria Death-by-Stoning Appeal to Be Decided Sept. 25
(“IPS,” August 29, 2003)
Amina Lawal, condemned to death in Katsina state, northern Nigeria, for adultery will learn whether or not she will be stoned to death on Sept. 25.
Lawal's attorney filed an appeal against the confirmation of her death sentence by the Upper Sharia Court in Funtua last year.
The 31-year-old mother was convicted in March last year by a lower Sharia court in Funtua for adultery and sentenced to death by stoning for giving birth to a baby girl more than nine months after being divorced. She appealed against the ruling to the Upper Sharia court hoping to get her sentence quashed, but on August 10 the same year, the court confirmed the death sentence.
''We hereby uphold the judgment of the Bakori Sharia court that decreed that you be sentenced to death by stoning,'' said the presiding judge, Abdullahi Aliyu Katsina, in confirming the death sentence. However, the judge said Amina would have to wean her eight-month old baby for three years before she was killed.
After listening to Amina's counsel, Aliyu Musa Yawuri, during the resumed hearing this week, the five Sharia judges agreed to issue a judgment on her appeal on September 25.
Yawuri had told the court that under Islamic law, there is a provision that a woman could carry a ''sleeping embryo” for a period of five years commencing from the date of divorce. ''Amina was divorced for about 10 months when she delivered her child, so the court ought to have applied the law in her favor,'' Yawuri argued.
The lawyer also told the Sharia judges that Amina had withdrawn a confession of guilt made in March last year, but in her first appeal before the upper Sharia court, the request was rejected.
However, the prosecution argued that the confessional statement could only be withdrawn if an alternative explanation for her pregnancy was submitted, which he said was not done.
Soon after the March ruling by the upper Sharia court, local human rights organizations as well as the international community, led by Amnesty International, condemned the judgment and began campaigns against the sentence. Several signatures have been compiled by right activists in Nigeria and the United States for example, in the effort to save Amina's life.
''We are very worried that in this particular case, the judgment is not, for instance, compatible with the Nigerian constitution and Nigeria's obligation to international instruments and the African charter on human rights. We are hoping that the woman will be given the right to enjoy her right of appeal,'' said Steven Callow, spokesman for Amnesty International.
Her counsel and human rights activist, Hawa Ibrahim, who filed the appeal before the Sharia appeal court in Katsina state, said Nigeria is a signatory to international instruments among which such death sentences should not be carried out, describing the judgment as cruel, inhuman and degrading.
Worried by the negative impact of a conviction and killing of Amina on Nigeria internationally, the government has assured that nobody would be put to death through stoning.
Assuring the international community of government's position, former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dubem Onyia said: ''The ruling is not a travesty of justice as there are higher courts yet to examine the case.
The Nigerian government has never undermined the rights of its citizens and will not look away when these rights are threatened. It is worthy to mention that in the history of justice in Nigeria, no woman has ever been punished in such dastardly manner as pre-empted by this case and this will not be an exception.''
''The Nigerian constitution stands supreme in this case. In the working of our constitution, the true character of federalism is allowed to operate in which case state laws are allowed to operate freely but as in every true federalism in interpretation of such laws, when the state laws impinge on federal laws, the federal laws usually supersede,'' Onyia said.
Amina Lawal is the second woman to be condemned to death for adultery. Safiya Hussein, who was earlier condemned by the lower Sharia court for having a baby out of wedlock, was set free by a higher Sharia court following serious international pressure and outcry by human rights activists and the timely intervention of the presidency.
Nigeria narrowly escaped being turned to a pariah state for the second time after the era of late General Sani Abacha but for the verdict of the Sharia appeal court, which overturned the ruling and set her free. Safiya is today a citizen of Rome, Italy.
Analysts believe Amina Lawal will eventually be set free by the Sharia court of appeal, given the precedent set when 30-year-old Safiya was set free by the Appeal court following an outcry from rights activists.
They are also in agreement that even if the Sharia appeals court confirms the death sentence, she could still appeal to a higher court as a next stage before turning to the Supreme Court for interpretation of the legal system.
Biola Lawal, vice chairman of the Gowon Estate Central Mosque in Lagos, told IPS: ''Islam is a very compassionate religion. In Islam, if someone murders another person and he is put on trial, the family of the dead person can show compassion, but the murderer has to pay some compensation to the family of the dead person.''
''In the case of adultery, it depends on what the woman pleaded in court. If she deceives the judges on earth, she can not deceive God on judgment day. Even in the time of Prophet Mohammed, sinners go to confess without being forced. It takes a high development of faith to surrender to God''.
Biola Lawal does not agree that the judges will set her free based on international pressure. ''I don't think the judges will want to say because the West is against their action, they will compromise. If I were in their shoes, I will not, because of judgment day. I will be held accountable for the deed.''
He is of the conviction that Muslim youths in northern Nigeria will not go on the streets to demonstrate against any judgment setting Amina free, but warned that society must be careful not to allow immorality to thrive in Africa to avoid unpleasant repercussions from God.
Sharia was first introduced in Zamfara State northern Nigeria as a political tool by the campaigning Governor Yerima Sani in 1999. Eleven other northern states have since joined the bandwagon and many people, both men and women, have faced different punishments leading to amputations for stealing and strokes of the cane for drinking alcohol.
Nigerian mother Amina Lawal appeals Sharia stoning sentence
(AFP, August 27, 2003)
Single mother Amina Lawal launched an appeal against an adultery conviction that could see her become the first Nigerian to be stoned to death since the return of Islamic law.
The 31-year-old village housewife has become the best known symbol around the world of the controversy surrounding the reintroduction in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north of the strict Sharia criminal law code.
On Wednesday she was back in the spotlight once again, cradling her baby daughter Wasila in Katsina State's Sharia Appeal Court before a five-strong bench of senior judges decked out in white robes and turbans.
"This case involves life and has been prolonged, so we don't have time for more delays," Katsina's top Islamic legal authority, Grand Khadi Aminu Ibrahim, told the packed courtroom.
"It's good that Amina should know her fate. She will be either stoned or acquitted. It's not right to keep her in suspense for so long," he added.
Under Sharia, a divorced person who has sex before he or she remarries can be found guilty of adultery, and thus face death.
Last year Lawal was denounced by fellow villagers in the Katsina farming community of Kurami after she gave birth to Wasila more than two years after splitting from her husband.
She was convicted in March last year and lost her first appeal in August. Her photo was flashed around the world and her fate inspired Internet campaigns, women's rights protests and candle-lit vigils.
On Wednesday, however, defence counsel Aliyu Musa Yawuri focussed on challenging her conviction under the terms of Sharia, not on fighting the controversial legal system itself.
He argued that the village court which convicted her had not properly explained the offence or its consequences before her alleged confession.
He also said that the baby had been conceived before Sharia law was formally enacted in Katsina State.
Lawal gave birth on January 6 last year, more than two years after her divorce but only six-and-a-half months after Katsina reinstituted Sharia.
The defence also argued that, under Islamic law, the pregnancy could have been the result of a so-called "sleeping embryo".
"Amina gave birth within two years of divorce, so the presumption is that the child belongs to her former husband," he said, arguing that Sharia recognises that an embryo can lie dormant for up to five years.
"Because of these arguments we call on this court to grant the prayers of my client and throw out the death sentence imposed on her by the two lower courts," Yawuri concluded.
The prosecution requested and was given a one hour adjournment to consider its response. It was not clear whether a verdict would be given later Wednesday or whether it could be postponed once more.
Around 35 armed police were deployed around the building, but there was no sign of impending trouble.
Amina sat impassively through most of the proceedings. She was wearing a deep purple headscarf and an elegant green dress given her by her lawyer and friend Hauwa Ibrahim, who was also present along with senior counsel.
But she appeared close to tears when press photographers crowded in, and family members said the young Muslim woman was under severe stress.
"Amina is deeply worried. Sometimes she can't even eat. She's anxious to see the end of this case so that she can marry and have a normal life," said the defendant's uncle, 50-year-old farmer Magaji Liman.
Lawal's case has become an embarrassment for Nigeria's secular federal government and for President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has tried to reassure foreign protesters without offending Nigerian Muslims.
No one has yet been stoned since 12 mainly Muslim northern states seized upon the end of military rule in 1999 to begin invoking Islamic law for the first time since the west African country won independence in 1960.
But some thieves have had their hands amputated, and several others have been sentenced to be stoned for various "sex crimes".
Lawal's appeal has come to be seen by many as a test case, as Nigerian federal officials have said that they can not challenge Sharia unless an individual appeals to the Supreme Court.
Sharia Group for Death Penalty
("This Day," August 19, 2003)
The Bauchi State Sharia Commission has urged President Olusegun Obasanjo to drop, in the interest of Muslims, his plans to abrogate capital punishment in the country.
The commission said in a statement given to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the weekend in Bauchi that the proposed abrogation was not only an attempt to frustrate the implementation of Sharia but also an affront to Islam.
It said it would explore all peaceful means to protest the Federal Government's intention, but warned that where such means failed, it would not hesitate to mobilise the Muslim Ummah against the proposal.
In a related development, a renowned Islamic scholar in the state, Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, has described the move as an open invitation to chaos, saying such should not be allowed to sail through at the National Assembly.
He said that those calling for the abrogation of capital punishment might become the first victims of the move, as armed robbers would not spare them.
"Even with capital punishment enforced, many innocent people are being killed daily; what would happen in the absence of the law?" the Islamic scholar asked.
He, urged the Federal Government to desist from actions capable of igniting crisis in the country.
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Three directors of an Islamic school yesterday pleaded not guilty in the Lusaka magistrates court to charges of cruelty against 280 children in Chaisa township.
The directors at the Faiz-E-Abra Islamic Trust School are responsible for the welfare of the children whom they recruited from various places across the country.
Baird Kanyanta, a Congolese, and two Asians, Iqbal Patel and Muhammed Ali, appeared before magistrate John Njapao for plea after they were arrested on June 2 in Lusaka.
They are also charged with child abuse, unlawful confinement and failing to provide necessities of life to the children.
The three were granted bail of K550,000 each with one working surety and were ordered to surrender their passports to the court.
The charge was that between January 2000 and June 24 this year, the three mistreated and abandoned 280 boys.
The accused will appear in court for mention on July 18 while trial begins on July 31.
On Thursday, police pounced at the centre and arrested the directors after discovering that the children were allegedly caged and kept in an inhumane environment.
The boys, aged between four and 10 told Youth, Sports and Child Development Minister Gladys Nyirongo that they were being mistreated and wanted to be taken back to their homes.
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South Africa's church leaders will grapple this week with ways to bring African customs and culture into worship when they meet in Pretoria for the second South African Christian Leadership Assembly (Sacla) .
The first Sacla, held in 1979, united Christian leaders in developing a strategy against apartheid.
This year's conference will deal with seven threats to South Africans: HIV/Aids, violence, crime, racism, poverty and unemployment, sexism, and the family in crisis.
The Mail & Guardian understands that a key debating point will be the Africanisation of the church. Charismatic churches are said to be strongly against the concept, while mainstream denominations are more willing to explore and embrace Africanisation.
"The church needs to re-evaluate its value system and identify how African values can be incorporated into Christianity," said Bishop Mvume Dandala, presiding bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. "Eurocentric interpretations of Christianity have alienated so many of our country's people. We should not be ashamed of bringing our culture into our faith.
"We have sought to make Africa embrace a culture which we have arbitrarily designated as the only culture that has capacity to welcome the Lord Jesus. The church has to acknowledge this mistake and repent of it. The church must legitimise the quest for space to look afresh at the gospel of Jesus Christ with African eyes, and through serious African questions."
African values encourage society to develop a structure, he says.
"If people are separated from their value systems, they behave in un- social ways. I want the church to investigate these structures and to see how this social structure can fit into the church," he said.
Dandala said ancestors have a place in Christianity. "Western norms distorted the honouring of ancestors into ancestor worship," he said. "They decided that ancestor worship was a heathen practice that had to be eradicated. But ancestors are a very important part of African culture. No generation lives for itself. People have rituals to keep the ancestors' memory alive." He said this should not be condemned by the church.
"When we close the doors on the conference we want to give the country, and specifically Christians in South Africa, a powerful momentum to eradicate all these powerful threats that are dragging the country down," Dandala said.
Even sangomas need not be excluded from the church. "Though a sangoma's role is not in the church, they play a vital role in society. Though we do not agree with everything they do, we need to engage them in the appropriate dialogue.
"There are things that the church think is wrong, but before anyone judges our culture - including sangomas - we need the appropriate dialogue to decide why it is wrong. The problem with mission methodology in the past was they decided everything African is wrong. It was either the Western way or the highway," he said.
Police have arrested two foreigners in Lusaka's Chaisa township for unlawful confinement and abuse of 280 children being kept at an Islamic school.
A team of police and Government officials, acting on a tip-off from some residents, rushed to the Faiz-E-Abrar Islamic Trust school and found the children, all males aged between four and 10, kept in a warren of cells.
The two arrested men are Boyd Kanyanta a Congolese who is the vice-chairman at the school and Iqbal Patel of Asian origin who is the chairman and director of the institution.
The children, clad in robes and Islamic caps told Youth, Sports and Child Development Minister Gladys Nyirongo, one of those who rushed to the school, that they wanted to leave the centre where they were sometimes fed on rotten food kept in a sewer.
Reverend Nyirongo wondered why only Zambian children were found at the school where Islam was compulsory when every child had a right to choose a religion of one's choice.
She said there were reports that the plan was for the children to be sent out of Zambia at some time when they had attained a level of Islamic education and fluency in an Eastern language.
"We don't want to have another al-Qaeda network in Zambia. This appears to be a very serious arrangement," Rev Nyirongo said.
The children also said they were not allowed to speak any local language while in school and a breach of the rule attracted capital punishment from their instructors.
They complained that they were subjected to Islamic teachings, caged in small rooms and made to eat food kept in a man-hole once they strayed from the Islamic teachings.
Four inmates were made to sleep on one a single mattresses in a crammed room of 12.
Lusaka police chief Chendela Musonda said the manner the children were being kept was worrying and investigations had been launched to establish the truth behind the school.
He said police officers would be stationed at the school to ensure that there was no further victimisation of the children while investigations were going on.
Mr Musonda said the two school directors were also charged with failing to provide necessities to children and child abuse.
Rev Nyirongo said the children were fed on expired foods while a lot of money was received from foreign donors for the operations of the same institution.
She said most of the children were malnourished and Government was making consultations on whether to close the school or not depending on the outcome of the investigations.
"Some people are using these children to satisfy their own interest in or outside this country against the law of the country," Rev Nyirongo said.
A school aide Mussa Muzombora said he was sent to get young boys from Northern, Eastern and Luapula provinces so that they could be enrolled at the school.
Mr Muzombora said he became suspicious about the manner the children were being kept because they were mostly confined and subjected to Islamic teachings but with little academic activity.
He revealed that there was another centre in Makeni where another group of children was confined.
Mr Muzombora said the project was started in 2000 but he could not reveal the activities to the outsiders as he was scared of his superiors.
A representative from the Society for Moslem Youths, Ronald Banda said whenever any of the children fell sick, the authorities at the school would refuse to provide money to take them to the hospital.
The children who almost started rioting at the school urged the minister to take them to their parents as they were being mistreated and beaten all the time.
Rev Nyirongo was accompanied by Lusaka Province Minister Patrick Ngoma.
In a related matter, Government has rescinded its decision to redeploy 64 orphaned and vulnerable children accommodated at the Fountain of Hope drop-in-centre in Lusaka.
Child affairs director at the ministry of Youth, Sport and Child Development, John Zulu said in Lusaka yesterday that the decision had been reached after a meeting with stakeholders.
Mr Zulu said he met United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) officials who agreed to improve the situation at the centre to provide better accommodation.
Members of the controversial doomsday cult Ibandla
lika Krestu have been living in fear since returning to their homes.
Alleged cult leader Nokulunga Fiphaza was compelled to leave Payne Farm, near
Umtata, on Tuesday night after disgruntled community members visited her and
queried her presence in the area.
Payne Farm is a small settlement about 10km from the cult's compound, where
eight bodies were exhumed last week.
Police said Fiphaza had
relocated to her daughter's home in Butterworth out of fear for her life.
The six-room house where Fiphaza had hidden for the past two weeks was empty of
furniture on Wednesday.
One of the neighbours, who did not want to be named, confirmed that Fiphaza, the
owner of the house and local teacher Dumisani Lingani had been staying there.
While Fiphaza was there, the curtains were closed 24 hours a day and, although
the house has electricity, only a candle was used for light said the neighbour,
adding: "The community were shocked to see media reports about Fiphaza's
involvement in the cult and immediately called the police."
But the police didn't arrest Fiphaza this week because she claimed to be an
ordinary member of the cult.
A statement was taken, but the court and the investigating officer, Inspector
Bongani Ntanjana, have not yet decided whether to charge Fiphaza or compel her
to turn her state witness.
Two other members of the cult at Payne Farm, Nosipho Mpambaniso, 18, and
Sindiswa Bakeni, 23, who both still obey the cult's teachings, have been
harassed by locals.
On Wednesday local community leader Chief Jongisizwe Ndzambule lashed out at
those who are harassing the cult members, saying they were violating their human
rights.
Two influential Islamic groups in Nigeria have urged Muslims to resist the government's immunisation programme aimed at eradicating the polio virus. They alleged the immunisation is dangerous.
The Supreme Council for Shari'ah in Nigeria (SCSN) and the Kaduna State Council of Imams and Ulama said in a communiqué issued at the end of a joint meeting in the northern city of Kaduna on Sunday they considered government motives for the programme suspicious.
Muslims, the statement said, must be "wary of the polio vaccination being aggressively and religiously pursued" by the government with the United Nations agencies - World Health Organization and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) - "because of its potential dangers".
Sheik T. Suleiman of the Council of Ulamas, who signed the statement with Sheik Zubairu Sirajo of SCSN, told reporters the two bodies had found evidence the polio vaccine was intended to sterilise children and control population growth.
"Our doctors have conducted extensive research on this. It is a plot by the Western world to reduce the population of Nigeria and other developing countries," he said.
"There has been absolutely no evidence to back up what they are saying. In fact, the contrary is the case - the vaccines have been independently verified and found to be totally safe", UNICEF-Nigeria spokesman, Tom Mshindi, told IRIN in rebutting the clerics' allegations.
"That such claims are being made indicates the extent to which work needs to be done to educate people on the essence of the polio immunisation effort."
In recent years international agencies involved in the polio eradication effort have encountered resistance to immunisation in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria, fuelled by the preaching of some clerics alleging that the vaccines either caused sterility or contained HIV.
To overcome this belief the agencies, working with top Muslim doctors in the region, have conducted widely publicised evaluations of the vaccines to prove to the public that there is nothing sinister about immunisation.
Nigeria is one of five countries which, together, account for more than 85 percent of new polio cases worldwide. The others are Afghanistan, India, Niger and Pakistan. All nine states where polio cases have been identified in Nigeria are in the north.
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The Anglican Church of Uganda has a new leader. He is Archbishop Henry Orombi, who formerly headed Nebbi Diocese in the north-west.
Though hailed as a fiery priest with enormous persuasive, intellectual and mobilisation capacity, little is known about the political inclination of this 54-year old British-educated clergyman. He was elected to the high position on July 3.
Expected to assume office in January next year, Archbishop Orombi takes over from the politically less controversial, Bishop Mpalanyi Nkoyoyo, who was sympathetic to the ruling National Resistance Movement.
Nkoyoyo was a practical man, whose regime realised the completion of a multi-million dollar residence befitting the head of the Church.
Archbishop Orombi comes in at a time when people's expectations of church leaders on matters of politics are high. A research conducted recently indicated that clergymen were the most highly trusted on political matters.
Seen as closer to the government, the Anglican Church, which has five million members in Uganda, has been less forthright in its criticism of political programmes, compared to the Catholic Church.
However, the issuance of a joint declaration from the Joint Christian Council, on churches' disapproval of an intended constitutional amendment to allow President Museveni stand for a third term, indicates the Church's endorsement to this trend.
Orombi becomes the third Anglican
Archbishop since President Yoweri Museveni took power, and the second from
northern Ugandan since the country's independence.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will appoint a committee to investigate allegations of physical and sexual abuse of missionary children in Africa between the 1950s and 1980s.
The new panel's first task will be to look at reports of abuse at missionary boarding schools in Egypt and Cameroon.
The allegations were initially made to another committee that was formed to report on abuse of missionary children in Congo between the 1940s and 1970s. Last year, that committee recommended a broader church probe into charges of abuse against missionary children.
The new three-member panel is to be appointed by Oct. 1, according to Pat Hendrix, staff liaison with the Worldwide Ministries Division for the denomination, based in Louisville.
It will investigate allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children at a boarding school at the American Presbyterian Mission in Alexandria, Egypt.
It also will probe alleged sexual abuse of children who boarded at Hope School in Elat, Cameroon, in the 1960s.
The Rev. Marian McClure, director of the Worldwide Ministries Division, has said the allegations in both cases are credible.
In Arabic, the word jihad means striving and is not a declaration of war against people of other religions, including Christians and Jews, scholars say.
Today, it has become a tainted word because of its use in violent campaigns waged by self-proclaimed jihadist groups such as Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.
Tantawi, whose al-Azhar is the highest authority in Sunni Islam, said suicide attacks by Muslims, including those against Israelis, were unjustified.
"They were wrong," he said, adding that extremism was not the way to vent frustrations.
Tantawi has condemned the May 16 Casablanca blasts targeting foreigners and the Jewish community that killed 43 people, and a triple suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 34 people a few days earlier.
He said jihad was compulsory for every Muslim in
order to uphold truth.
A document on women's rights challenging age-old African traditions such as female circumcision, polygamy and arranged marriages will be put to African heads of state in Maputo this week.
"This is going to be quite controversial ... quite far-reaching," said Jakkie Cilliers of the South African-based Institute for Security Studies, a research body closely involved with preparations for the African Union (AU) summit.
The draft protocol on the rights of women in Africa will be submitted for consideration and adoption when the 53-member AU assembles in Mozambique for its second summit from Thursday to Saturday.
AU foreign ministers expressed support for the document at a pre-summit meeting Tuesday, but Egypt and Libya attached reservations because the draft did not accord with Islamic sharia law, sources within the executive council told AFP.
"Some of these seem basic in Western terms but they are very far-reaching in some African societies and amount a radical change of norms," an AU official said.
The document, drafted by the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, states: "This protocol will constitute for the African woman a legal tool that will shelter her from all kinds of abuses."
African women living in traditional, rural areas are often still considered inferior and subject to their husbands and fathers, who play a dominant role as the decision-makers.
More developed countries have lobby groups advocating women's rights, but even modern South Africa's Deputy President Jacob Zuma is an open supporter of polygamy, which is discouraged in the draft protocol.
Perhaps the most well-known women's rights case in Africa is that of Amina Lawal, a Nigerian woman sentenced to be stoned to death for bearing a child out of wedlock.
The AU, which is trying to prove to the developed world that Africa has the ability to lift itself out of poverty and conflict, was urged at a recent conference on female circumcision to take a strong stance on women's rights.
The document would prohibit genital mutilation, which still occurs on a massive scale despite being banned in many African countries.
The painful tradition, seen as controlling female sexuality and making a girl more "marriageable", involves cutting off the clitoris and other parts of the genitalia in girls and teenagers.
The most extreme, infibulation, consists of the removal of the clitoris and the labia and the joining of the sides of the vulva across the vagina, where they are tied with thorns or sewn with catgut or thread.
It is usually carried out without the aid of anaesthesia and often causes infection and sometimes death.
The paper also promotes consensual marriages, as opposed to the traditional arranged marriages in which a woman's father chooses her life partner.
"No marriage shall take place without the free and full consent of both parties," the draft protocol states.
It does not go as far as prohibiting polygamy, the practice of having multiple wives, but says it favours monogamy.
"Monogamy is encouraged as the preferred form of marriage, and the rights of women in marriage and family, including in polygamous marital relationships, are promoted and protected."
The document also dedicates space to health and reproductive rights: "Parties shall ensure the right to control their fertility, decide whether to have children and the right to choose any method of contraception."
In reference to the continent's battle with AIDS, it states: "(Women shall have) the right to self-protection and to be protected against sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS. ... (and) the right to be informed on the health status of one's partner, in accordance with internationally recognised standards and best practices."
Cilliers said at least 15 countries needed to ratify the draft protocol for it to be adopted by AU members in Maputo this week.
He added: "It is one of the most remarkable texts, I think. The text is very impressive. This will really be a gigantic step forward."
Police are hunting cult leader Nokulunga Fiphaza who is accused of
concealing the deaths of eight people buried in church grounds at Mandela
Park informal settlement, near Umtata, last week.
Superintendent Nondumiso Jafta said leads were being followed and an arrest
was expected soon.
Meanwhile, 15 worshippers have been granted bail in Umtata magistrate's
court. They are to appear in court again on September 15.
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Raided Lost
Ark returns home
by Damian Zane ("BBC News,"
July 1, 2003)
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A replica of the
Biblical Ark of the covenant, or tabot, has been taken back to
Ethiopia and an Irish doctor was responsible.
But Indiana Jones he is not. No chiselled jaw line. No leather whip, no pistol. And this discovery did not require hacking through dense jungle or dodging dangerous rivals. In 1868 British soldiers looted the Maqdala fortress in the north of Ethiopia as part of a campaign to free some hostages. Royal treasures along with some valuable manuscripts and religious artefacts found their way into museums and private collections. Doctor Ian MacLennan - an Ethiopia lover and member of the Orthodox church - came across the unidentified tabot in London - in the middle of an auction lot of various Ethiopian artefacts. 'Absolutely shocked' Doctor MacLennan - who at times shielded his eyes from the gaze of publicity during the press conference where his discovery was announced - spoke with awe about his chance find. "I was absolutely shocked," he said. He added that when he sees the tabot during a church service he feels physically sick, and so he started shaking when he realised what he was looking at. Doctor MacLennan bought the tabot - although he is not revealing for how much - and knew that it had to come back to Ethiopia. And he brought it here within two weeks of getting hold of it. As the tabot is only the third item of the Maqdala treasures to come back to Ethiopia, there is still a long way to go before full restitution. New trend But Richard Pankhurst, one of the founders of the Afromet campaign, suggested that this could be the beginning of a trend. Indreas Eshete, president of Addis Ababa university and chair of Afromet, used the opportunity to call on the British Museum to return the collection of Ethiopian manuscripts that were taken from Maqdala and which are invaluable to scholars here. So far Ethiopia has had to rely on the generosity of individuals. For the past 15 years the campaign for the return of these treasures - Afromet - has been calling on the British to hand them back. The finder of the lost ark - Doctor MacLennan - did not want to get caught up in a political argument. But looking down at his feet he said that now he just wants to go home and feel happy that the people of Ethiopia have got one of their raided tabots back. |
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