• People watch as smoke rises from the police headquarters in Nigeria’s northern city of Kano after a bomb attack on January 20, 2012.
    The campaign of violence by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, including attacks on churches and suicide bombings in the first three weeks of 2012 that killed more than 253 people, is an indefensible attack on human life. The January 20, 2012 attacks in the northern city of Kano left at least 185 police and residents dead and resulted in the highest death toll in a single day since Boko Haram began its violent campaign in July 2009. More than 935 people have been killed in some 164 suspected attacks by the group during this period.

Reports

Terrorism

  • Dec 22, 2011
    A Congress that cannot agree on many things that Americans want came together last week to approve something virtually no one was demanding: It decided to give the United States military the authority to arrest and imprison suspected terrorists, potentially even on U.S. soil, and to allow the government the permanent power to detain without trial people suspected of involvement in terrorism.
  • Dec 1, 2011
    US President Barack Obama should hold firm on his promise to veto a bill passed by the Senate on December 1, 2011, which contains provisions on the detention of terrorism suspects that would undermine US counterterrorism efforts. The administration had previously outlined objections to the detainee provisions in the bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012, and threatened a veto if the problems were not addressed.
  • Sep 28, 2011
    A Libyan-Canadian citizen who was imprisoned for eight years by the Muammar Gaddafi government says that agents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) were among foreign agents who interrogated him while he was in Libyan custody for suspected terrorist ties.
  • Sep 24, 2011
    The Canadian government should be prepared to bring criminal charges against former US Vice President Dick Cheney for his alleged role in the torture of detainees when he visits Vancouver on September 26, 2011.
  • Apr 29, 2011
    The bombing in Marrakesh on April 28, 2011, was a heinous attack on the population and an assault on basic human rights.
  • Apr 18, 2011
    The prosecution of hundreds of officials, activists, and elected mayors from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) highlights the problems associated with Turkey’s overbroad antiterrorism laws.
  • Apr 4, 2011
    The Obama administration’s decision to prosecute the five men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States before a military commission is a serious setback for justice. Reversing his November 2009 announcement that the men would be tried in federal court in New York, Attorney General Eric Holder announced on April 4, 2011 that the suspects will face trials before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay.
  • Jan 24, 2011
    Russia should ensure that the bombing at one of Moscow's international airports on the afternoon of January 24, 2011, is investigated in full accordance with international human rights standards and that those responsible are brought to justice.
  • Nov 30, 2010
    Prominent Kenyan human rights activist Al-Amin Kimathi is among 17 defendants whose cases were sent to the Ugandan High Court on November 30, 2010, for trial for the July bombings in Kampala.
  • Aug 9, 2010
    Al-Shabaab claims it struck Kampala as retribution for attacks on civilians by the African Union peacekeeping force, led by Ugandan soldiers who are propping up Somalia's internationally backed transitional government. As investigators continue to sift through the evidence and talk of more arrests, international policymakers and governments in the region should work just as urgently to revise their failed Somalia strategies.