Pregnant Teenager Sentenced to Caning

A pregnant teenager has been sentenced to 180 strokes of the cane by an Islamic Sharia court in northern Nigeria, officials said. Human rights activists have reacted angrily to the sentencing of 17-year-old Bariya Magazu after a trial likely to fuel controversy over the introduction of the strict Sharia penal code in parts of northern Nigeria. Separately, Roman Catholic bishops of Nigeria issued a statement calling on President Olusegun Obasanjo “to address the Sharia issue with the seriousness and sense of urgency that it deserves.” The court in Zamfara state, the first of Nigeria’s regional governments to proclaim Sharia law, tried Magazu on charges of having had premarital sex.