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Miss Denmark joins sharia boycott
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (CNN/AP) -- Miss Denmark has joined a boycott of the Miss World pageant to protest against a death sentence imposed on a Nigerian Muslim woman accused of having sex outside marriage. The pageant has come under international pressure over the case of Amina Lawal, 31, who was sentenced by a Sharia judge to be stoned to death while buried up to her neck in sand. "I don't wish to travel there unless they reverse the sentence," said 23-year-old Majsa Juel, who won the Miss Denmark title in November. Juel joined fellow contestants from Spain, France, Belgium and Switzerland in staying away from the competition which is set for late November in Abuja, Nigeria. Governments and human rights organisations have urged Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to intercede. The European Parliament urged a boycott of the contest. Human rights group Amnesty International has also urged the Nigerian government to ensure that Lawal is not executed under any circumstances. It has asked the public to send protest faxes to Obasanjo, Nigerian foreign affairs minister Alhaji Sule Lamido, and Kanu Godwin Agabi, the minister of justice. In a statement given in June, the pressure group said: "Amnesty International is deeply concerned for the physical and psychological integrity of Amina Lawal and unreservedly condemns the use of corporal punishment, torture and the use of the death penalty, which clearly violates international human rights standards. She is the second woman to be sentenced to death after bearing a child out of marriage since 2000, when more than a dozen states in the predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria adopted strict Islamic sharia law. In March, an appeals court reversed a similar sentence on Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu after worldwide pleas for clemency and a warning from Obasanjo that Nigeria faced international isolation over the case. The adoption of sharia, which punishes theft with the amputation of hands, has stoked violence between Muslims and Christians in Africa's most populous state. More than 3,000 people have been killed. Copyright 2002 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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