The UN children’s agency UNICEF has “expressed deep concern” over the imprisonment and treatment of a 13-year-old boy convicted for blasphemy in Kano State.
In August, Omar Farouq was sentenced to 10 years in prison with menial labour by a Sharia court in Kano State. The court said the sentence was given because the boy was not yet 18.
On the same day, singer Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, 22, was sentenced to death by hanging over the same offence.
UNICEF called on the Nigerian federal and state authorities to urgently review the case with a view to reversing the sentence.
The sentencing “is wrong… it also negates all core underlying principles of child rights and child justice that Nigeria – and by implication, Kano State – has signed on to,” said Peter Hawkins, UNICEF representative in Nigeria.
The sentence is in contravention of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Nigeria ratified in 1991, UNICEF said in a statement. (BBC)
