Rights groups caution AI over Shiites, Army clash probe
Two civil society groups, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and Association of African Writers on Human and Peoples Right (AFRIRIGHT), have cautioned Amnesty International to allow the probe panels set up by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and Kaduna State government on the clash between the Nigerian Army and Shiites do their job without any interference.
The rights groups also accused Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai of inflating the number of casualties in the clash without proven evidence.
Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja yesterday, National Coordinator of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, ask Nigerians “to disregard the hasty conclusions already drawn by the Amnesty International, which had called for a probe on the high figure of casualties even when it is a known fact that both panels set up by the NHRC and Kaduna State government has yet to conclude the exercise.
They also called for the probe of the Country Director of Amnesty International, Mohammed K. Ibrahim, who was alleged to be an official of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC).
The groups said: “It is regrettable that since the last few months that Amnesty International opened a country office in one corner of Abuja and appointed Ibrahim as head, the officials have often uttered statements that betray them as being sympathetic to Islamic fundamentalism.”
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