The director of the Auschwitz Memorial appealed to Nigeria's president on Friday to pardon a 13-year-old boy who was sentenced to 120 months of prison on blasphemy charges, even volunteering to serve part of the boy's sentence.
Piotr Cywinski wrote to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari about the case of Omar Farouq, who was recently convicted in a Sharia court in Kano State in northwest Nigeria after he was accused of using blasphemy in an argument with a friend.
Cywinski said that as the director of the site that preserves the remains of the German Nazi extermination camp, "where children were imprisoned and murdered, I cannot remain indifferent to this disgraceful sentence for humanity."