Rights groups and religious leaders condemned on Tuesday a Nigerian Muslim state which called for the death of a journalist whose article on the Miss World pageant sparked deadly riots in northern Nigeria.
Muslims were enraged by the article which suggested the Prophet Mohammad would probably have married one of the beauty pageant's contestants. More than 200 people were killed in riots which followed in the city of Kaduna.
Umar Dangaladima Magaji, the commissioner for information in the northern Zamfara state, said the state government had "passed a fatwa", or religious edict, on journalist Isioma Daniel, calling for her to be killed.
Editors at ThisDay newspaper, which published the article, said Daniel had fled to the United States after tendering her resignation in the wake of the crisis which saw the Miss World pageant hastily relocated from Nigeria to London.
Ann Cooper, executive director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said: "We are extremely concerned about her safety. In this whole controversy, I think something that has been completely lost is the universal right to free expression."
She said article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guaranteed everyone the freedom to express themselves without fear of reprisal.
But Magaji said the fatwa was issued in response to requests by many Islamic associations in Zamfara for the state government to take action.
"What we are saying is that the Holy Koran has clearly stated that whoever insults the Prophet of Islam, Mohammad, should be killed," Magaji told Reuters.
NUMEROUS APOLOGIES
But religious experts around the world questioned the validity of the fatwa, saying it should not apply as the newspaper had apologised over the article.
ThisDay has issued numerous apologies, which it said had been accepted by the main Muslim body in Nigeria, the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs.
"ThisDay newspaper has apologised on her (the reporter's) behalf, so the fatwa has to be withdrawn," Kaduna-based Islamic scholar Ali Alkali told Reuters.
Sheikh Saad al-Saleh, a Ministry of Islamic Affairs official in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, said: "They have no right to kill if the person expresses regret and apologises as it is considered repentance.
"But if the person stands by his statements then the matter should be referred to a sharia court to decide on a punishment, including death," he added.
Daniel is in her early 20s and had recently returned from a journalism course at Britain's University of Lancaster.
"I do not think it is blasphemy, the journalist has made a mistake and has said irrelevant things," said a reformist cleric in Iran, who declined to be named. "We cannot decide for the Prophet Mohammad."
Iranian officials were outraged last month by comments from U.S. preacher Jerry Falwell, who described the Prophet Mohammad as a "terrorist". Some hardline clerics called for a fatwa against Falwell, but the issue died down after he apologised.
SOME IN FAVOUR
Other clerics said Daniel deserved the fatwa against her.
"People are reacting to the sentencing to death of one person, forgetting that 200 people, both Muslims and Christians, have died (in the rioting)," said Sheikh Muhammad Dor Muhammad, Secretary-General of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya.
"A fatwa like that is legal. We don't have any complaint to the state that made it. I hope this will bring to an end people, Muslim or otherwise, insulting our Prophet."
Mohammed Nasiru Usman, an imam in Kaduna, also supported the fatwa. "Fatwa can be declared on a non-Muslim who insults the Prophet. That is exactly what this reporter did," he said.
Speaking in Britain, Miss World organiser Julia Morley pleaded for forgiveness for Daniel, saying she "has already apologised and admitted it was a very irresponsible thing to do."