Auschwitz memorial director offers to serve Nigerian boy's blasphemy jail sentence

The director of Poland’s Auschwitz Memorial museum has written to Nigeria’s president offering to serve part of the 10-year jail sentence given to a 13-year-old boy for blasphemy.

Piotr Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz Memorial in Poland.

Photo: PAP/Łukasz Gągulski

In a letter tweeted by the museum this week, Piotr Cywiński asked Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to pardon the boy, who was accused of blasphemy during a dispute with a friend and sentenced last month by an Islamic court in Nigeria’s northern Kano region, Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.

The director of @AuschwitzMuseum wrote the President of Nigeria and asked him to pardon 13-year old Omar Farouq sentenced for 10 years imprisonment.

He declares he is ready to share part of the sentence.

'I cannot remain indifferent to this disgraceful sentence for humanity.' pic.twitter.com/EzVBjCzgcY

— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) September 25, 2020

Cywiński said that if a pardon was not possible, he and 119 other volunteers would share the boy’s punishment and each spend a month in a Nigerian jail.

As the head of a memorial to Auschwitz, a place “where children were imprisoned and murdered, I cannot remain indifferent to this disgraceful sentence for humanity,” Cywiński added.

Reuters news agency reported that Buhari has not yet commented on the sentence that was condemned by rights groups.

UNICEF last month said the sentence was “wrong” and went against international accords that Nigeria had signed, according to Reuters.

In Nigeria, Muslims form the majority in the north, while the country’s southern parts are predominantly Christian.

(jh)

Source: IAR/Reuters