Nigeria warned amid crackdown on Shiites

LAGOS: Nigeria yesterday faced calls to prosecute soldiers for using excessive force against Shiite Muslim protesters, exactly three years after a military crackdown killed more than 300. Human Rights Watch said the security forces had shown a “pattern of brutality” towards the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) and warned such action could worsen national security. More than 40 people were killed in three days of protests in the capital, Abuja, in October when the security forces fired live bullets at crowds.

The army maintained six people died and that soldiers acted in self-defense because protesters were trying to seize weapons and ammunition, and that troops came under attack. Aniete Ewang, Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “The repression against the

IMN Shia Muslim group by government security forces risks creating grievances that could worsen Nigeria’s already precarious security situation. “The increasing spate of protests by the group is a cry for justice that authorities would do well to heed.” She added: “Any unlawful use of violent force against processions and protesters is highly likely to be counterproductive as well as a crime.”

Mass grave

HRW called on the authorities to “end impunity” for the attacks, investigate crackdowns on other protests and “hold anyone found responsible for using unlawful force to account”. The IMN and its leader Ibrahim Zakzaky have been at loggerheads with the government for years because of his call for an Iranianstyle Islamic revolution in Nigeria.

Nigeria is almost evenly split between a mainly Sunni Muslim north and a largely Christian south. On December 12, 2015, soldiers killed 347 IMN members in a three-day crackdown in the northern city of Zaria, after accusing them of blocking the road and threatening the chief of army staff.