Public executions make an ugly back-drop to a beauty contest. Nigeria will be host to the Miss World pageant in November, but several beauty queens have threatened a boycott in protest at the Islamic courts in northern Nigeria which have recently condemned four people to be stoned to death. One young woman, Amina Lawal, was condemned for having been made pregnant by a man who, she says, promised to marry her, but didn't. (Her alleged lover was acquitted.) None of the stonings has yet been carried out, but the controversy around Islamic law, or sharia, threatens to destabilise Africa's most populous nation. Over the past two years, 12 predominantly Muslim states in northern Nigeria have adopted versions of sharia for criminal cases. Nobody minded when Muslims used sharia to solve land disputes and family squabbles, but the introduction of penalties such as flogging (for drinking alcohol), amputation (for theft) and stoning (for adultery) has outraged non-Muslims, sparked sectarian riots in which more than 3,000 people have died, and cast doubt on the central government's ability to uphold Nigeria's secular constitution.
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