SAFIYA MADE AN HONORARY CITIZEN OF ROME

the honour was conferred on Monday to Safiya Husseini who was sentenced to death for adultery last year, but was later acquitted on appeal.
Rome´s Mayor, Walter Veltroni, said he hoped to confer the same honour to another Nigerian woman facing death by stoning for adultery, Amina Lawal.
The title of "citizen" is purely honorary and carries no residency or any other legal rights.
Safiya Husseini, 35, and her two year-old daughter arrived in Rome from Lagos on Saturday.
Coming from a village with no electricity, running water or paved roads, she was literally a world away in Rome, on her first trip outside Nigeria´s remote northwestern Sokoto state.
"You don´t know me and I don´t know you but I am most grateful to you for saving my life. God bless you all," she said, speaking in Hausa through an interpreter.
"Now that I am free I will pray to the Almighty God to allow Amina to be free too," she said at a conference in her honour as her year-and-a-half-old daughter Adama cried for attention.
Last month, a Nigerian court rejected an appeal by 31-year-old Amina Lawal Kurami, who gave birth out of wedlock, and confirmed the sharia court´s sentence that she be stoned to death.
Safiya was sentenced to death by a Sharia court in her home state of Sokoto in northern Nigeria in 2000. The sentence triggered protests in many countries but the outcry was particularly strong in Italy where candlelit vigils were held outside the Nigerian embassy in Rome.
After Safiya’s acquittal in March, the Colosseum was floodlit at night - as is the case when a death penalty is cancelled somewhere.
"For Safiya, we have lit up the Colosseum," Rome mayor Veltroni said.
"We hope to be able to light it up again for Amina."
But Muslim leaders from Nigeria have condemned the honour conferred on Safiya.
Two of the 12 state governors who brought Islamic law to northern Nigeria say they tried to prevent her from receiving it.
"When I learned of the invitation I wrote to the State Security Service chief and the Immigration Service asking them not to issue a passport to her," said Sokoto Governor Attahiru Bafarawa.
He said that the immigration authorities granted his request but that the Women´s Affairs Ministry sent a delegation to Safiya’s village to give her a passport.
Governor Ahmad Sani, of Zamfara state, also condemned Rome´s decision.
"Our fear is that Safiya and her daughter will be converted to Christianity, which we believe is the intent of the invitation," he said.
The Nigerian federal government regards the application of Sharia law as unconstitutional, but has so far not acted against its use.