The New Zealand Parliament unanimously passed a motion...

The New Zealand Parliament unanimously passed a motion condemning the sentencing of a Nigerian woman to death by stoning for having sex outside marriage.
National MP Sandra Goudie's motion imploring Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo "to intervene and save the life of this unnecessarily persecuted woman" was passed without debate.
Amina Lawal, a 30-year-old mother of three, is the second Nigerian woman to have been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery since strict Islamic Sharia law has been restored in some Nigerian states over the past two years. Lawal, twice wed after first marrying at the age of 14, is the youngest of 13 children of a farmer. She was divorced for the second time in June 2000. After her second divorce, she started a relationship with a man in December that year which lasted until November 2001, when she gave birth to a daughter.
Under Sharia law, which covers a dozen northern Nigerian states, a woman who is divorced and subsequently has a sexual relationship with another man is guilty of adultery, even if he is unmarried.
The punishment for adultery under Sharia law is stoning to death.
General Obasanjo has said that nobody had ever been stoned to death in his country and he hoped Lawal would not be the first victim of the sentence.
"The good thing is that the Nigerian legal system takes into account the right to appeal and Amina Lawal has appealed," he said.
"There is nobody that has ever been stoned to death in our history, and I hope that nobody will be stoned to death," he said.