PRESS RELEASE – NIGERIA: IHRC drafts report for UN on Nigeria rights abuses

IHRC has submitted a report to the United Nations higlighting systematic state abuse in the authorities’ treatment of the country’s Islamic Movement.

The report has been written for the upcoming review by the UN’s Human Rights Committee of Nigeria’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

IHRC’s report focuses on the persecution of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria and its leaders and supporters since 2014, a period which has seen two massacres and routine killings, torture and detention without trial amongst other abuses.

Several key rights in the ICCPR have been breached by the state, among them freedom of assembly, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion and the right to life itself.

The Islamic Movement’s leader Sheikh Ibrahim el-Zakzaky was arrested in the December 2015 massacre in Zaria by the Nigerian military of over 1000 followers of the group, just over one year after another attack on the movement which killed tens of supporters. After detaining him without charge for two years Nigerian authorities brought Sheikh Zakzaky to trial in 2018 on trumped up charges of abetting the commission of culpable homicide by blocking roads in the city in the run up to the massacre. In reality the charges are designed to deflect government responsibility for a planned and systematic attack by soldiers which is now the subject of a preliminary investigation by the International Criminal Court.

The report can be read at https://www.ihrc.org.uk/activities/ihrc-at-un/22349-iccpr-nigeria-2019/

For more information or comment please contact the Press Office on (+44) 20 8904 4222 or (+44) 7958522196[ENDS]

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IHRC is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
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