Amina Lawal is a Nigerian single mother. In March 2002, she was sentenced by an Islamic Sharia court to death by stoning for adultery for conceiving a child while not married.
The affair exposed civil and religious tensions between the Christian and Muslim regions of Nigeria. The sentence also caused widespread outrage in the West, and a number of campaigns were launched to persuade the Nigerian government to overturn the sentence. The Miss World contest, to be held in Nigeria in 2002, was pulled out of the African nation as a protest in favor of Amina Lawal.
In September 2003 an Islamic appeals court overturned her conviction. The five-judge panel stated that she was not given "ample opportunity to defend herself" in the previous proceedings.
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