Convicted of giving birth to a child under wedlock in an Islamic court and sentenced under a Shari'ah based penal code, 31-year-old Nigerian, Amina Lawal Kurami, was sentenced to death.

The person Kurami says is the father of her child supposedly told her that he would marry her, but evidently didn't. By the time the law stepped in, the man accused denied being the child's father and the charges against him were dropped. This was not the case for Kurami.

Kurami was sentenced to death by stoning which was to be carried out in 2004 after the weaning of her latest child.

The process of a death-by-stoning begins with a being person buried in sand up to their shoulders and a bag placed over their head. After that, people start out by throwing little stones at the person's head and over time they throw larger stones, eventually killing the person.

Although the Islamic court passed this sentence, according to Amnesty International, the judgment was incompatible with Nigeria's human rights laws. Kurami has had a lawyer in Nigeria fighting on her behalf--she didn't have one when she was first sentenced to death-by-stoning.

Probably because of international attention, including the involvement of people from Oprah, a woman previously in the same position, Bill Clinton, Australia's Prime Minister, and others, the president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, assures that higher courts are going to abrogate Kurami's death-by-stoning sentence.

More here.