Only four Miss World contestants will boycott the beauty...

Only four Miss World contestants will boycott the beauty contest due to be held in Nigeria on December 7 in protest against the death sentence given to Amina Lawal. Miss World organisers told Hands Off Cain that Switzerland, Denmark, Austria and Costa Rica are the only countries to have given Amina's plight as the reason for pulling out of the contest. The 31-year-old Nigerian mother was condemned to death by stoning for adultery by an Islamic court in the northern Katsina state in March. A Sharia appeals court confirmed her death sentence in August, and she is currently on her second appeal. Amina herself feels that participation in the contest could help her plight. She had been unaware of both the Miss World contest and the calls for its boycott before the HOC delegation that travelled to Nigeria to meet her earlier in October informed her of it. "Let them come," she stated with reference to the contestants. "I know things will work out because people are coming from all over the world to see me." Amina travelled to Abuja on October 16 to meet the delegation comprising HOC General Secretary Sergio D'Elia and Board Member Elisabetta Zamparutti, MEP Benedetto della Vedova and Italian MP Roberto Giachetti. She is neither in prison nor in hiding, though Katsina state authorities are prohibiting foreigners from visiting her in her home state. Candidates from Hungary, Sweden, Italy, Norway, Netherlands and Finland adhered to HOC's appeal to take a stand against the boycott and participate in the contest to protest against her plight in Nigeria itself. Miss England, Daniella Luan, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph last weekend, expressed her delight at hearing Miss Lawal's call for support rather than a boycott. "If Amina feels we should go to support her then I am very pleased," she said."I think it's totally inhumane that she faces being stoned to death but I felt that if I abandoned Nigeria I would have abandoned Amina and her supporters."