The United States has awarded a Nigerian lawyer, Kola Alapinni and other six from different countries in recognition of their courage and commitment to promoting and defending religious freedom globally.
According to the statement released from the office of State Department Spokesman on Thursday, stating that Secretary of State, Antony Blinken honored this people with the the Department’s International Religious Freedom Award.
Their names are Farid Ahmed, Kola Alapinni, Mirza Dinnayi, Peter Jacob, Martha Patricia Molina Montenegro, Tali Nates, Lhadon Tethong, and group of nine Orthodox clergy from Lithuania represented by Gintaras Sungaila.
While stated that these advocates have focused on promoting human rights and mutual respect for all in countries including Nigeria, Iraq, Pakistan, New Zealand, South Africa, and Nicaragua, as well as protecting the rights of Orthodox Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, and members of other religious communities around the world.
It was revealed that these awards are part of the Department’s events commemorating 25 years of the International Religious Freedom Act, which was signed by President Clinton on October 27, 1998.
The awardee from Nigeria, Kola Alapinni, is an international human rights lawyer who provides legal defense in multiple freedom of religion or belief cases and for challenging the constitutionality of Nigerian blasphemy laws.
He is the leading defense counsel in two prominent blasphemy cases in Kano, Northern Nigeria. The first case involved Omar Farouq Bashir, a minor who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by a Kano Shari’a court in 2020 and subsequently released on appeal following Alapinni’s intervention.
And the second case concerns Muslim singer Yahaya Shariff Aminu who was sentenced to death by the same Kano court and whose appeal is pending with the Nigerian Supreme Court.
In 1999 amid public pressures following the return of civilian rule in Nigeria, 12 northern states introduced a version of Shari’a law that prescribes the death penalty or lengthy prison sentences for blasphemy.
When Omar Farouq Bashir and Yahaya Sharif-Aminu were arrested and charged with blasphemy in 2020, lawyers were reluctant to defend them in court because of the threat that violent mobs would attack or kill them and/or burn their homes.
Kano has a history of mobs violently reacting to issues that relate to blasphemy. Alapinni and his team went to Kano and provided pro bono legal representation to Farouq and Sharif, despite considerable risk to themselves.
The death sentence was overturned but Yahaya’s case was remitted to the Sharia Court for a retrial. Following a further appeal, the legal team is now at the Supreme Court of Nigeria seeking to free Yahaya and to challenge the Sharia Penal Code laws in Northern Nigeria.