Yahaya Aminu Sharif is a 22 year-old Nigerian musician who was sentenced to death on charges of “blasphemy” after circulating a song via Whatsapp in early 2020.

The circumstances surrounding Sharif’s arrest, charges and conviction are murky. He was arrested on March 4, 2020 after a mob of angry protesters burnt down the singer’s home in Kano, the northern Nigerian state where an Islamic court runs in tandem with the secular one. Following the arson, protesters marched to the headquarters of the state’s religious police force, the Kano State Hisbah Corps, to demand his arrest and prosecution.

The only charge Sharif faced during his trial was one for “blaspheming the Prophet”, though reports do not include the specific lyric he is alleged to have used in the recordings he circulated in a Whatsapp group message. He was sentenced to death by hanging on August 10 by the Kano Upper Shari’a Court, having never had the chance to plead his case in front of a secular judge.

Kola Alapinna, Sharif’s lawyer from the Lagos-based Foundation for Religious Freedom, assured that an appeal had been lodged with the state high court. It appears a date for the appeals hearing has not yet been set.

In addition to the support from Alapinna’s organization, supporters of Sharif from across Nigeria’s music industry have signed an open letter to Kano state’s executive governor demanding that the sentence be overruled and the charges dropped. Condemnations also came in from the UN Special Rapporteur for Cultural Rights and the head of the Auschwitz Memorial in Poland, referencing the violation of human rights constituted by a death sentence in a case where no physical harm was inflicted.

Please join these voices and The Voice Project in seeking Sharif’s immediate freedom and the reversal of his death sentence.