Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said his...

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said his country would be outraged if a Nigerian woman was stoned to death as sentenced by a Sharia court. Mr Downer joined other international condemnation of an appeals court decision to uphold the death sentence on Amina Lawal, for alleged adultery and bearing a child out of wedlock. "The Australian government is universally and consistently opposed to the use of capital punishment in any circumstances," Mr Downer said in a statement. The death penalty is an inhumane form of punishment which violates the most fundamental human right: the right to life. If this sentence were to be carried out, it would be received with outrage in Australia and in the wider international community. Death by stoning is a cruel, inhuman and degrading form of punishment and is therefore prohibited under both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention Against Torture, to all of which Nigeria is a party."