Nigeria’s security forces have beaten protest demonstrations a Shi’ite movement forcibly low. The don’t want to give up until their leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky is free again; he has been sitting for 2015 in detention.
The situation in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, remains tense after the police had beaten a Demonstration of the Islamic movement in Nigeria (IMN) forcibly low. At least six protesters, a policeman and a Journalist were killed in the March of the IMN on Monday, and the confrontation continued on the next day. The police fired live ammunition and Tear gas canisters, protesters petrol bombs threw.
The Shiite group is determined, the marches continue, until their spiritual leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky is released from prison. Zakzaky was arrested in December 2015 by the Sunni authorities of Nigeria, among others, on Terrorism charges. Previously, security forces in the North Nigerian city of Zaria were killed in clashes, hundreds of Shiites.
DW spoke with a young Schiitin, which claimed to be on the way to the doctor, after it was hit by tear gas. You will return directly after the treatment to the Demonstration, said Zainab Lawal Abdulkadir: “I hope to die in this fight, I want a bullet penetrates my body, like yesterday, my brothers and sisters go.”
Zakzaky had founded the movement in the 1970s. Since 2015, he is in custody.
Hardened Fronts
Police spokesman Frank Mba criticised in a television interview that the actions of the protesters. “They have attacked innocent citizens and police officers randomly and violently, and then a destruction of the series to public and private property started,” he said a Nigerian station. They would use “lethal weapons”. Zakzakys followers were against it. The Shia had remained in spite of repeated attacks from the government side in its 40-year history, always peacefully, wrote Twitter user Mustyy. “We are going to Haram never be a second Boko.” But the life of Zakzaky intact, was a “No-Go”.
Both the government and the protesters would have to behave according to the rules of the rule of law, stresses Mukhtar El-Khasim, an Analyst in Northern Nigeria. Not only the IMN handle illegal, he said of the DW. “The Nigerian government has refused to follow the directives of the Constitution, or the judgment of a court”. In fact, a Federal court had ordered as early as 2016, the release of Zakzaky, because the investigations against him were unlawful.
According to the human rights organization Amnesty International, it is a frequently used strategy by the Nigerian authorities to send in protests to the IMN the military. The IMN is the best-known Shiite group in Nigeria. The majority of the Muslim population belongs to the Sunni.
The Declared Goal: The Free Exercise Of Religion
Ibrahim Zakzaky then founded the IMN in the late 1970s, initially as a student movement inspired by the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Zakzaky convinced fellow students that an Islamic Revolution in Nigeria is possible. The first Time the group performed in the year 1980 in public appearance, as a Demonstration in support of Iran organized. Previously, the United States and Canada had carried out a joint Operation to rescue American diplomats who were in Tehran caught.
Since the arrest of Zakzaky in December 2015 and supporters call for his release – here 2018
In recent years, the Nigeria attacked niches in the security forces again and again, supporters of the Islamic movement, the protests and religious processions took part. The government has accused several million members strong organization, to call for violence, and the state to undermine. In addition to their use for the release Zakzakys the Shiite group claims to represent only your right to free exercise of religion claim.
The retired army major and safety expert Bashir Shuaibu said the DW, Zakzaky was to be released on bail, in order to defuse the Situation. The religious leaders could then talk with his supporters.
Fatima Musa is one of them – and for them there is no going Back: “I will not leave Abuja without my spiritual leader,” she says of the DW. “I have sacrificed my whole life to free Ibrahim Zakzaky.” It doesn’t look like it, as the demonstrators would give up soon.