Condemned woman urges end to Miss World boycott

Adulterous wife who faces death by stoning welcomes beauty queens and says 'No man can harm me without God's permission'

A Nigerian woman condemned to death by stoning for having sex outside marriage welcomed beauty queens arriving for this year's Miss World contest yesterday and urged those staying away to abandon their boycott.

"I really appreciate the support of the contestants who have offered to boycott for me, but I urge them to come," Amina Lawal, 31, said outside her lawyer's home in Abuja, the capital. "I am not afraid, because no man can do me harm without God's permission."

More than 80 contestants arrived from London on Monday, easing Nigeria's fears that the largest showbiz event it has staged was about to go disastrously wrong. The death sentences passed on Ms Lawal and other Muslim women by Islamic sharia courts caused international outrage and led the Nigerian authorities to promise they would not allow any stoning sentences to be enforced.

But the federal government refuses to intervene directly in the Islamic court system that imposed the sentence. Since 1999, the sharia system has been adopted by a dozen predominantly Muslim northern states, and President Olusegun Obasanjo, a southern Christian, has to tread carefully.

Ms Lawal said: "I just cannot worry too much about what will happen." She was wearing a Muslim headscarf and played, as she spoke, with her baby. She said she had not heard of official pledges to block the sentence.

Although a number of countries threatened a boycott, it appears that no more than five will stay away. The contestants from Costa Rica, Denmark, Switzerland, South Africa and Panama have yet to show up, but most of the others have been reassured by the promise from the Nigerian government that the sentence will not be carried out. Kathrine Sorland, Miss Norway, said: "Life is more important than any contest ... I put all my trust in that statement."

Dubem Onyia, a foreign affairs minister, told the entrants, who will tour Nigeria until the final on 7 December: "You have no fears in this country. Your safety is guaranteed. And I assure you, no Nigerian has been stoned or will be stoned. Relax and enjoy yourselves." They applauded politely.

The Miss World contest, condemned by feminists in Europe and North America, is popular viewing in the Far East, Latin America and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, attracting swarms of sponsors and advertisers. The organisers claim that last year's contest – at which Agbani Darego, an 18-year-old Nigerian computer science student, became the first black African Miss World and gave her home nation the right to stage the 2002 final – was watched by two billion people in more than 100 countries.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has seized on the pageant as an opportunity to overcome its reputation for corruption, military rule and human rights violations.

But the contest has not only highlighted the nation's ethnic and religious tensions, it may have aggravated them. After protests from hardline Muslim groups, which called Miss World "sacrilegious", the final was delayed by a week so it would fall after Ramadan. At least four Muslim majority states will ban broadcasts of the final.

Some Islamic groups have threatened to disrupt the event, which one called a "parade of nudity" likely to undermine the fight against Aids. Sadiu Aliu, of Mahiba, a fundamentalist group, said it was planning "black prayers" to spread "plagues of curses and bad luck" on Miss World organisers and participants. He accused them of "spreading immorality".

Ms Lawal said she hoped to watch the event on television at her lawyer's home. She said it was a "one-time event" to which many resources had been devoted, and insisted she had not been influenced by the organisers or officials.

A medieval punishment

"The condemned are wrapped head to foot in white shrouds and buried up to their waists. Then the stoning begins. The stones are chosen so they are large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the condemned immediately."

This is a description of the procedure for death by stoning, prescribed by sharia law for married adulterers. Few countries enforce it: sentences of amputation, flogging and death by stoning are often passed by traditional courts in Nigeria and other countries, including Pakistan. The civil authorities usually make sure they are not enacted, despite cases where "community groups", perhaps with the connivance of local authorities, take matters into their own hands.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are almost the only countries that employ the full range of medieval punishments laid down by Islamic holy writ, although opponents complain that supporters of sharia frequently ignore the high standards of proof demanded in the same texts, or apply them so as to discriminate against women. A woman in Pakistan who alleges rape must have four Muslim men testify that they witnessed the assault. If she cannot do so, she risks being charged with unlawful sex herself, resulting in few rape cases being reported.

In Iran, the legal code says a man should be buried up to his waist, and a woman up to her neck – a crucial difference, since if a person who is to be stoned escapes, he or she is allowed to go free.