The Rome city council said that Safiya was a "symbol...

The Rome city council said that Safiya was a "symbol of our commitment to fighting the inequality of women and defending human rights around the world."Mayor Walter Veltroni, who conferred honorary ctizienship to the Nigerian woman saved from stoning, praised Safiya as a woman of "great strength and courage."Hussaini's case triggered a storm of international protest with various governments and non-governmental organisations including Amnesty International condemning the stoning sentence and mounting campaigns to save her life.In Italy, the Rome-based Community of Sant'Egidio, a lay Catholic organisation which is among the candidates for the 2002 Nobel peace prize, and a radio programme called Zapping aired daily on state broadcaster RAI were particularly active in campaigning for clemency for Safiya.The Sant'Egidio Community organised 'save Safiya' vigils outside the Nigerian Embassy in Rome while the embassy was inundated with more than a million faxes and e-mails as a result of Zapping's Safiya campaign. On March 25, an Islamic appeals court freed Safiya, overturning the lower court's ruling on the grounds that the alleged crime took place before Sharia law had been introduced. The verdict was hailed by Safiya's supporters as an important victory for human and women's rights. Nicoletta Gaita, the organiser of a two-day conference on Safiya in Rome, said that "the problem is ignorance and poverty and the lack of knowledge about Sharia. Several Nigerian states have adopted the law for political reasons but they don't understand it. Safiya's lawyer managed to defend her by calling for a more orthodox application of the law and this is the line of defence we will take with Amina." Nigerian ambassador to Rome Etim Jack Okpoyo said that "a trial is under way but we are very optimistic that Amina will also be freed." Like Safiya, Amina was sentenced to death for bearing a child out of wedlock.Sant'Egidio spokesman Mario Marazziti has repeatedly stressed that such sentences are "anti-constitutional", in that the right to life is enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution.But while this right is respected under Nigeria's federal law and Constitution, Sharia states counter that the Constitution also protects individual states from interference by the Nigerian federal government.