Nigeria Reportedly Arrests Rights Activists to Thwart Protest Plans

Security forces have arrested nine members of a human rights group out of fear they were going to demonstrate publicly over the hanging of nine minority rights activists, a group official said Thursday.

The European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, said despite the international furor over last week’s hangings, it had been informed Nigeria was planning to execute 17 other people condemned to death “merely for defending the environment in their country.”

Jiti Ogunye, secretary general of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, or CDHR, said two student leaders from Benin City and seven committee members from Lagos have been arrested in the past week. “All of them are detained in the Lagos police headquarters, but we have been denied access to them,” Ogunye said.

Nigeria’s military rulers, under fire for a poor human rights record, provoked international outrage last Friday with the hanging of prominent author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other minority rights activists on charges that many observers said were trumped up.

The activists, who maintained their innocence, were sentenced by a tribunal for the murder of four pro-government chiefs in the oil-rich Ogoniland region.

Ogunye said the CDHR believed that its members were arrested because of the “military’s phobia that we would demonstrate publicly against the hangings.”

The CDHR issued a statement denouncing the arrests.

“We are disturbed by the crudity that often accompanies these reckless arrests and continued violation of the rights of citizens,” it said.

“The Abacha regime should learn to stop embarrassing Nigeria, as the country belongs to all of us.”

Gen. Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s military ruler, accused foreign powers of interference in his first reaction to the international furor over the hanging of the rights activists, local newspapers reported.

“In recent times the international community has made absolute and deliberate efforts to interfere in our national and internal affairs,” the majority government-owned Daily Times quoted Abacha as saying. “We will do everything possible to maintain our unity, stability and security and preserve our integrity and sovereignty as a nation.”