A 13-year-old boy in Nigeria will be spending 10 years in jail after he was found guilty in using foul language against Allah during an argument with a friend.
He was charged with blasphemy.
Omar Farouq was convicted of using foul language against Allah during an argument with a friend.
The child was sentenced to a decade in jail in a Sharia court in Kano State, which is located in northwest Nigeria.
The conviction of Omar has been slammed by child rights activists with UNICEF,
They are saying that his sentence should be reviewed urgently.
Kola Alapinni filed an appeal on Omar’s behalf earlier this month.
The punishment that Omar got is
In violation of the African Charter of the Rights and Welfare of a Child and the Nigerian constitution.
It was reported that the same court that sentenced Omar once sentenced studio assistant Yahaya Sharif-Aminu to death for blaspheming Prophet Mohammed.
Kola Alapinni said during an interview with CNN:
We found out they were convicted on the same day, by the same judge, in the same court, for blasphemy and we found out no one was talking about Omar, so we had to move quickly to file an appeal for him. Blasphemy is not recognised by Nigerian law. It is inconsistent with the constitution of Nigeria.
The mother of Omar fled her house after mobs confronted her, especially after her son got convicted in the crimes that he was facing.
The Kano state is one of the 12 states in Nigeria that practices the Sharia Law alongside the Secular law.
Only Muslims can be tried for the Sharia Law.
Sentences during the trials vary from amputations to even the death penalty.