| | |
|
| |
|
|
Nigeria Politics as War The Human Rights Impact and Causes of Post-Election Violence in Rivers State, Nigeria
HRW Index No.: A2003 March 27, 2008 Download PDF, 219 KB, 55 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Criminal Politics Violence, “Godfathers” and Corruption in Nigeria
HRW Index No.: A1916 October 9, 2007 Download PDF, 1000 KB, 123 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book "Chop Fine" The Human Rights Impact of Local Government Corruption and Mismanagement in Rivers State, Nigeria This 107-page report details the misuse of public funds by local officials in the geographic heart of Nigeria’s booming oil industry, and the harmful effects on primary education and basic health care. The report is based on scores of interviews in Rivers state with government and donor agency officials, civil servants, health care workers, teachers, civil society groups and local residents. Human Rights Watch also analyzes state and local government budgets. HRW Index No.: A1902 January 31, 2007 Download PDF, 109 KB, 921 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book “They Do Not Own This Place” Government Discrimination Against “Non-Indigenes” in Nigeria This 64-page report documents the harmful impact of discriminatory policies against those citizens defined as "non-indigenes" in Nigeria. These policies have a harmful impact on the human rights of many Nigerians and are in violation of the Nigerian constitution and international human rights law. The report also shows how these policies of discrimination exacerbate interethnic and interreligious tension in ways that have sparked violence in many different parts of the country. HRW Index No.: A1803 April 25, 2006 Download PDF, 390 KB, 66 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book “Rest in Pieces” Police Torture and Deaths in Custody in Nigeria Thia 76-page report is based on over 50 interviews with victims and witnesses of torture and is the first comprehensive study on the subject. The report documents brutal acts of torture and ill-treatment in police custody, dozens of which resulted in death. Across Nigeria, both senior and lower-level police officers routinely commit or order the torture and mistreatment of criminal suspects. Human Rights Watch urges foreign governments funding police reform in Nigeria to be more critical about police abuses, such as torture. HRW Index No.: A1711 July 27, 2005 Download PDF, 416 KB, 76 pgs Purchase online Revenge in the Name of Religion The Cycle of Violence in Plateau and Kano States This 75-page report provides the first detailed analysis of clashes between Muslims and Christians in northern and central Nigeria in February and May 2004 and the factors that continue to threaten the stability of central and northern Nigeria. It provides detailed documentation of two major outbreaks of violence in the town of Yelwa, Plateau State, in February and May 2004, and a reprisal attack in the northern city of Kano in May 2004. HRW Index No.: A1708 May 25, 2005 Download PDF, 388 KB, 76 pgs Purchase online “Political Shari’a”? Human Rights and Islamic Law in Northern Nigeria This 111-page report documents human rights violations since Shari’a was introduced to cover criminal law in 12 northern states. Since 2000, at least 10 people have been sentenced to death and dozens sentenced to amputation and floggings. The majority have been tried without legal representation. Many sentenced to amputation were convicted on confessions extracted under torture by the police. Judges in Shari’a courts, most of whom have not received adequate training, have failed to inform defendants of their rights. HRW Index No.: A1609 September 21, 2004 Download PDF, 527 KB, 113 pgs Purchase online Bringing Justice: the Special Court for Sierra Leone Accomplishments, Shortcomings, and Needed Support This 56-page report evaluates developments at the court, identifying achievements and making recommendations where operations should be improved. The report also urges the international community to provide more financial and political support for the court so it can complete its work effectively. HRW Index No.: A1608 September 8, 2004 Download PDF, 407 KB, 57 pgs Purchase online Nigeria’s 2003 Elections The Unacknowledged Violence Both Nigeria’s federal and state elections in 2003 and local government elections in 2004 were marred by serious incidents of violence. The scale of the violence and intimidation, much of which went unreported, called into question the credibility of these elections. This report documents cases of electoral violence in 2003. It also refers to incidents of violence reported around the 2004 local government elections, although most of Human Rights Watch’s detailed research was undertaken before those elections took place. Human Rights Watch is publishing this report to highlight the cost of ignoring political violence and to urge all those concerned to take measures to prevent violence in the next general elections in Nigeria scheduled for 2007. June 2, 2004 Download PDF, 301 KB, 49 pgs Purchase online The Warri Crisis: Fueling Violence The 29-page report, “The Warri Crisis: Fueling Violence,” documents how violence in Nigeria’s southern Delta State this year, especially during the state and federal elections in April and May, resulted in hundreds of deaths, the displacement of thousands of people, and the destruction of hundreds of homes. Among the dead were probably dozens killed by the government security forces. At the height of the violence, 40 percent of Nigeria’s oil production was closed down. HRW Index No.: A1518 December 17, 2003 Also available in 
Download PDF, 296 KB, 30 pgs Purchase online Renewed Crackdown on Freedom of Expression This 40-page report documents killings, arrest, detention, ill-treatment, torture and other forms of harassment and intimidation of real or perceived critics of the government over the past two years. Most of these abuses have been carried out by the Nigerian police or by members of the intelligence services known as the State Security Service (SSS). Brutal measures have been used to repress critical expression. In the most serious cases, people have been shot dead simply for exercising their right to protest. During massive public protests in July at an increase in the price of fuel, between 12 and 20 people were shot dead by the police in Lagos, in the oil city of Port Harcourt, and on the outskirts of Abuja. The victims included peaceful protestors and passersby who were not even involved in the protests. HRW Index No.: A1519 December 2, 2003 Download PDF Purchase online The Miss World Riots Continued Impunity for Killing in Kaduna The 32-page report provides detailed eyewitness accounts of how soldiers and police killed people in cold blood between November 21 and 23, during an operation intended to restore law and order. Fighting between Muslims and Christians broke out in the northern city of Kaduna in November 2002 following controversy around the Miss World beauty contest. Some Muslims considered an article in the newspaper ThisDay to be blasphemous. Muslim youths started attacking Christians, Christians retaliated, and within three days, around 250 people were killed. Not only did the security forces fail to intervene at the first signs of violence, but once they were deployed, they contributed significantly to the violence by killing and injuring people who were not posing any threat to security. The Human Rights Watch report also describes well-organized attacks by Muslim and Christian youths during the three days of violence. Youths of both faiths singled out their victims and attacked them purely on the basis of their religion. In addition to killing scores of people, they destroyed many buildings, including churches, mosques, schools and homes. The Human Rights Watch report concludes that the conflict in Kaduna was more political than religious and stemmed from unresolved disputes between different ethnic and political groups. It links the 2002 riots to clashes between Muslims and Christians in Kaduna in 2000, in which more than 2,000 people were killed following disagreements over the introduction of Sharia (Islamic law). HRW Index No.: A1513 July 23, 2003 Download PDF Purchase online Testing Democracy: Political Violence in Nigeria The Nigerian government should act immediately to address the political violence and intimidation that occurred during the recent elections, Human Rights Watch said in this report. Human Rights Watch called on President Olusegun Obasanjo and other leaders of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to restrain their party members and supporters from committing further acts of violence, and urged opposition leaders to ensure their supporters do not react violently to the elections. According to official results, the PDP won a significant majority in both the presidential and gubernatorial elections of April 19 and the National Assembly polls of April 12. However, the elections have been marked by serious incidents of violence, and widespread vote rigging and fraud. The violence has included clashes between supporters of the PDP and the largest opposition party, the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP). The ANPP and other parties have rejected the official results at various levels. HRW Index No.: A1509 April 10, 2003 Download PDF Purchase online The O'odua People's Congress (OPC): Fighting Violence with Violence Militia and vigilante violence continues to pose a real threat to security in Nigeria, especially in the period leading up to elections in April 2003, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. One of the more notorious groups is the O'odua People's Congress (OPC), an organization active in the southwest, which has killed or injured hundreds of people over the last few years. The 58-page report, "The OPC: Fighting Violence with Violence," provides detailed accounts of killings and other abuses by the OPC since the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo came to power in 1999. An organization that promotes self determination for the Yoruba ethnic group, the OPC is also part ethnic militia and part vigilante group. It has cashed in on a growing sense of disenfranchisement among the population and has taken advantage of the inability of the police force to maintain law and order. Some of these killings occurred in the context of ethnic conflicts, for example in the Idi-Araba area of Lagos in February 2002 when OPC members and other Yoruba clashed with members of the Hausa ethnic group and more than seventy people were killed. However, OPC members have been victims as well as perpetrators of human rights abuses. The report describes the brutal response of the police, which has resulted in the extrajudicial execution, arbitrary arrest, torture and prolonged pre-trial detention of hundreds of suspected OPC members. HRW Index No.: A1504 February 28, 2003 Download PDF Purchase online The Niger Delta: No Democratic Dividend When a civilian government was reinstated in Nigeria in 1999, many of those living in the Niger Delta region, the source of Nigeria's oil wealth, hoped that a "democratic dividend" would end decades of neglect they had suffered under successive military regimes. From the early 1990s a cycle of protest and repression had led to the militarization of large parts of the delta, notably in Ogoniland, a small area of Rivers State where demonstrations leading to the closure of oil production had led to a five-year deployment of a special military taskforce to the area and the 1995 execution of nine minority rights leaders, including author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. The situation has eased under the new government, and in particular Ogoniland is no longer occupied. But there is still widespread deployment of army, navy, and paramilitary Mobile Police at oil facilities across the delta. October 22, 2002 Download PDF Purchase online The Bakassi Boys The Legitimization of Murder and Torture Vigilante violence and human rights abuses by vigilante groups have become increasingly serious problems in Nigeria in recent years. Despite repeated government promises to tackle crime and to reform and expand the police force, the rate of armed robbery and other violent crime in Nigeria remains extremely high. Among the more notorious of these vigilante groups are the Bakassi Boys, active in several states in the south-east of Nigeria. Initially created by traders to fight rampant crime in the large market towns of Aba, in Abia State, then in Onitsha, in Anambra State, the Bakassi Boys have since extended their operations across other parts of Abia, Anambra, and Imo states, with the active support of state governments. In Anambra State, they have been legally recognized, through a special law adopted in August 2000. The methods the Bakassi Boys have used to carry out their "mission" have been extremely brutal, ruthless, and arbitrary. Scores of people have been extrajudicially executed or mutilated in public by the Bakassi Boys; hundreds of others have been tortured and detained in their "cells." Few people appear to question the legality of their actions; large sections of the public, the media and some politicians have applauded them on the basis that they have "succeeded" in bringing down crime levels in the areas where they operate. Likewise, few people have challenged the Bakassi Boys' claim that all those they target are known criminals; most have preferred to turn a blind eye to the fact that many of their victims may be innocent and that even those who are guilty have a basic right to due process. HRW Index No.: A1405 May 20, 2002 Download PDF Purchase online Nigeria: Military Revenge in Benue A Population Under Attack On October 22 to 24, 2001, several hundred soldiers of the Nigerian army killed more than two hundred unarmed civilians and destroyed homes, shops, public buildings and other property in more than seven towns and villages in Benue State, in central-eastern Nigeria. The killings in Benue State constitute clear cases of extrajudicial executions by the Nigerian military, contravening Nigeria's obligations under international human rights law. Yet the Nigerian government has so far failed to take action against the soldiers responsible or against those who ordered the operation, or even to issue a strong condemnation of these killings. At the international level, foreign governments remained conspicuously silent. While some mentioned the Benue killings in private meetings with Nigerian officials, they refrained from doing so publicly. The information in this report is based on testimonies provided to Human Rights Watch during the visit to Benue in mid December 2001. HRW Index No.: A1402 April 1, 2002 Download PDF Purchase online Jos: A City Torn Apart The Nigerian government could and should have prevented mass killings in Jos in September, Human Rights Watch said in a detailed report released today. As many as one thousand people are believed to have been killed in just six days as Jos, capital of Plateau State, was rocked by unprecedented violence between Christians and Muslims. The government should ensure investigations into the September massacres are thorough and impartial, and bring those responsible to justice, Human Rights Watch said. The 25-page report, entitled "Jos: City Torn Apart," is based on eyewitness testimonies gathered during a visit to Jos in October 2001. Human Rights Watch describes how between September 7 and 13, 2001, the city of Jos became the scene of mass killing and destruction for the first time in its history. Christians and Muslims were both perpetrators and victims. In addition to the killings, thousands of houses and buildings were smashed or burnt; homes and businesses were looted; and some villages, such as Dilimi on the outskirts of Jos, were virtually razed to the ground. 26pp, 3.00 HRW Index No.: (A1309) December 18, 2001 Download PDF Purchase online Nigeria: Child Soldiers Global Report 2001 From the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers There are no indications of under-18s in government armed forces. In 1999 and 2000 armed Ijaw youths thought to be age 16 and over took part in opposition to the government's oil policy in the Niger Delta. There is no information available regarding the participation of children in other ethnic militias. June 12, 2001 Nigeria: Government Human Rights Commissions in Africa Created by military decree in 1995 under Gen. Sani Abacha, the Nigerian National Human Rights Commission was clearly designed as an attempt to head off international criticism of military rule. During the Abacha period, the repressive political environment strictly limited the Commission's activities. With Abacha’s death in June 1998 and the accession of Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, the Commission became more active. It called on the new government to repeal military decrees that breached international standards and to take other positive measures. However, the Commission is still constituted under military decree and lacks many of the powers and guarantees of independence. January 1, 2001 |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Contribute to Human Rights Watch
Home | About Us | News Releases | Publications | Info by Country | Global Issues | Campaigns | Community | Bookstore | Film Festival | Search | Site Map | Contact Us | Press Contacts | Privacy Policy © Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA |
