A NIGERIAN court has banned Twitter and Facebook debates on the country's first wrist amputation for theft.

The Magajin Gari Sharia court in the northern city of Kaduna on Monday ordered the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), one of the country's leading rights groups, to suspend its Twitter and Facebook online debates on the amputation, which was carried out in 2000.

The court granted an interim injunction "restraining the respondents either by themselves or their agents... from opening a chat forum on Facebook, Twitter, or any blog for the purpose of the debate on the amputation of Malam Buba Bello Jangebe," said the order.

Jangebe was the first person to have had his right wrist amputated on the orders of a Sharia court in Zamfara State, a year after 12 northern Nigerian states adopted the strict Islamic penal code.

The order followed a suit filed last week by the Association of Muslim Brotherhood of Nigeria, a pro-Sharia group based in the northern political capital of Kaduna, which argued that internet forums would be used as "a mockery of the Sharia system as negative issues will be discussed".

The head of the CRC, Shehu Sani, confirmed to AFP that he was served with the court papers on Monday.

"We opened the blog, the Facebook and Twitter chats 10 days ago to serve as a platform for which Nigerians could air their opinions on Sharia law as a whole and the justification or otherwise of the amputation of the hand of Malam Buba Bello Jangebe," Sani said on the phone from Kaduna.

Out of Nigeria's 36 states, 12 re-adopted a strict version of Sharia in 1999 nearly a century after it had been abandoned.

Zamfara state in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria pioneered the move after the country returned to civilian rule following 15 years of military dictatorship.