Nigeria top court takes up WhatsApp blasphemy case

Nigeria's Supreme Court held its first hearing in a high-profile blasphemy case Thursday that defence lawyers hope will lead to a ruling that puts curbs on sharia law.

Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a Sufi Muslim musician, was sentenced to death by a sharia court in Nigeria's northern Kano state in 2020 for sharing song lyrics deemed to insult the Prophet Mohammed.

The Kano State High Court later overturned the conviction but also ordered a retrial -- an outcome his lawyers are trying to prevent while seeking a wider ruling on punishments for violating sharia law, including the death penalty for blasphemy and adultery.

"All various aspects of the sharia penal code that offend the constitution and Nigeria's international obligations, we cannot have on our statute books," lawyer Kola Alapinni told reporters after the court granted an extension for his team to file their appeal.

Though Nigeria's federal government is secular, sharia law operates alongside common law in 12 mostly Muslim northern states.

Harsh punishments for violations of Islamic law are rarely handed out -- and almost never implemented. Death sentences for adultery and blasphemy since the courts were established 25 years ago, have either been overturned or paused pending appeal.

However, mobs in the socially conservative north have been known to carry out vigilante justice for alleged blasphemy.

As the case has wound its way to Nigeria's highest court, civil and religious liberties advocates from the United States, European Union and United Nations have voiced support for Sharif-Aminu.

In April, the international court for the west African regional bloc, the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States, determined Kano's death penalty for blasphemy was "excessive and disproportionate".

Nigeria has not enforced the ruling.

Sharif-Aminu is alleged to have shared lyrics in a WhatsApp group that said that a Muslim religious leader he followed was more pious than the Prophet Mohammed, Islam's founder, Alapinni told AFP.

Lamido Abba Sorondinki, a lawyer for the Kano state government, told reporters that "anybody that has uttered any word that touches the integrity of the holy prophet, we'll punish him."

Standing next to him, Alapinni laughed and quipped: "My learned friend is not the Supreme Court -- that's just the opposition."

Sharif-Aminu remains in detention as his appeal continues.