Lawmakers in a mostly Muslim Nigerian state have approved legislation calling for Muslims to be whipped and Christians to be jailed if they are caught drinking alcohol, officials said Saturday, raising fears of renewed violence after sectarian fighting left 500 dead elsewhere in the country in recent days.
The bill, which was passed on Thursday, must be signed by the governor of northern Kano state before becoming law.
Lawmakers called for Muslims to be whipped with "80 strokes of the cane" if caught drinking alcohol, the speaker of Kano's legislature, Saidu Balarabe Gani, said in broadcasts on local radio stations.
The penalty for Christians would be a fine of 50,000 naira (US$380), a one-year jail term or both, Gani said.
Most of Kano's 8 million people are Muslim.
Several other northern states have officially banned alcohol and instituted punishments for Muslims, but they are rarely enforced. Christian civilians are permitted to drink in establishments on federal military and police installations.
Muslim clerics earlier expressed anger over what a Red Cross official said were the killings of 500 to 600 people in attacks on May 2 and May 4 by Christian militants on the Muslim town of Yelwa in the majority-Christian central state of Plateau.
Christian church leaders have distanced themselves from the killings, blaming them on rogue criminal elements.
On the streets of Kano, the state's main city, groups of men -- both Muslim and Christian -- huddled around radios and debated the proposed anti-drinking law.
Some non-Muslims reacted with alarm.
"This is an attempt to cause bloodshed," shouted Adams Yakubu, who said he was Christian. If authorities try to enforce the alcohol ban on Christians and animists, "only God knows what will follow," he warned.
"Some of these people are just looking for ways of repeating what is happening" in violence-torn Plateau state where hundreds, possibly thousands, have been killed in fighting between Muslim and Christian groups since January, said another man, Samson Ibrahim.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in intertwined ethnic, religious and political violence in Nigeria since President Olusegun Obasanjo was first elected in 1999, ending 15 years of repressive military rule.
Much of the violence has occurred between rival Christian and Muslim factions in Kano and other cities after a dozen northern states began implementing Islamic Sharia law in late 1999.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
RSS