Christian mother of 5 falsely imprisoned for over a year receives freedom award
Rhoda Jatau, a Christian mother of five from Nigeria, has received a religious freedom award after a blasphemy prosecution kept her jailed for over 19 months before her acquittal.
Jatau was given the First Step Forum's Shahbaz Bhatti Freedom Award on Friday for her dedication to religious liberty, according to ADF International, the Christian legal advocacy group that nominated her.
First Step Forum, an international network that promotes religious freedom, gives the prize each year to one person it judges to have “demonstrated exceptional commitment and courage in advancing religious freedom and human rights.” The award is named after former Pakistani member of Parliament Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who was assasinated for his opposition to Pakistan's blaspehmy laws in 2011.
“For over a year I did not see my children. I could only hear about them,” Jatau said at the ceremony.
Bauchi State authorities arrested Jatau on May 20, 2022, after rioting over a WhatsApp message she sent that was viewed as blasphemous, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Her message reportedly concerned the mob killing of Deborah Emmanuel Yakubu, a Christian student accused of blasphemy over something she posted on WhatsApp. Jatau allegedly shared a video condemning the killing.
She faced charges of “inciting public disturbance; exciting contempt of religious creed; and cyber stalking” under two Penal Code Law sections and a 2015 cybercrime act.
In December 2023, a Bauchi State judge released her on bail, and she was later moved to a secure location kept secret. She faced repeated bail denials and was held incommunicado.
Her lawyers consistently argued that the prosecution had failed to establish the basic elements of the case against her, citing significant legal shortcomings in their approach. She was acquitted in December 2024.
Her lawyer, Joseph Bata Danboyi, said hers was the first blasphemy case in Bauchi State, which made the legal stakes a major challenge. He said international pressure “is what led to her being freed.”
Nazila Ghanea, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, attended the ceremony after speaking up for Jatau while she was held.
Giorgio Mazzoli, the group’s head of United Nations advocacy, said global attention to one case can change its outcome.
“Religious persecution thrives when the world looks away,” he said. “When the U.N. and the wider international community turn their attention to a single case, they can change the outcome for the person at its center. We will continue to stand with the persecuted at the U.N. and other international bodies, and to hold governments to the commitments they have made to protect freedom of religion or belief for everyone.”
Sean Nelson, ADF International’s senior lawyer on religious freedom worldwide, said prison had not broken Jatau’s faith or resolve. He called for Nigeria and other countries to repeal blasphemy laws and end persecution.
The group is also backing the young Sufi Muslim musician Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, held for over six years on a blasphemy charge. He awaits a Supreme Court ruling, and a win for him could strike down the nation’s blasphemy laws.
In August, a Federal High Court sitting in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north ruled that Islamic religious police had no power to arrest a woman because she left Islam and became a Christian. The ruling limits the Hisbah, police units that enforce Islamic law, or sharia.
The woman, 22 and known by the pseudonym Sarah, fled her family’s Kano State home in 2025 after her older siblings abused her and tried to force her to marry. Her parents died years earlier.
Last October, President Donald Trump accused Nigeria of failing to protect Christians from violence he called an “existential” threat to their faith there. At his direction, the State Department named Nigeria a country of particular concern, a label for governments said to allow severe abuses of religious freedom, to pressure the Nigerian government.
U.S. aircraft struck Islamic State militants in northern Nigeria last Christmas Day, and American troops arrived in early 2026 to fight its affiliates. Hundreds of militants reportedly died in the campaign, according to Pete Hegseth, the U.S. secretary of war. Most U.S. troops left Nigeria in July.
Nigerian officials have downplayed the violence and denied that a genocide of Christians is under way. Despite U.S. administration efforts to fight extremists in the northeast, concern remains that the interventions didn't go after radicalized Fulani militias who have killed thousands in recent years in the largely Christian farming region known as the Middle Belt. In the Middle Belt, critics accuse the government of leaving its citizens unprotected.
