8 years ago
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Human Rights Watch: Nigeria security forces and boko haram likely committed ‘crimes against humanity’
Nigerian security forces and the radical Islamist Boko Haram sect
likely committed crimes against humanity in their fighting across the
country’s Muslim north, both torturing and killing civilians as
bloodshed in the region grows, according to a report released Thursday.
The Human Rights Watch report comes just days after soldiers
angered by the killing of an officer shot dead more than 30 civilians
with machine guns and burned down buildings in a neighborhood in
Maiduguri, the spiritual home of Boko Haram.
The report calls on the International Criminal Court to examine the
actions of all sides in the conflict and to push for prosecutions of
those involved, though it stops short of calling for international
proceedings against those involved.
“All parties should respect
international human rights standards and halt the downward spiral of
violence that terrorizes residents in northern and central Nigeria,”
states the report.
Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education
is sacrilege” in the Hausa language of Nigeria’s north, is blamed for
killing more than 690 people in drive-by killings and bombings this year
alone, according to an Associated Press count.
The sect has demanded
the release of all its captive members and has called for strict Shariah
law to be implemented across the entire country.The sect has
killed both Christians and Muslims in their attacks, as well as soldiers
and security forces. Despite leaders enacting martial law and sending
more troops into the region, the sect’s attacks continue almost
unstopped.
Recently, the military claimed it killed a number of the
sect’s senior leaders, as well as put out statements claiming to have
killed dozens of other members in its operations.
However, a
bombing Monday morning by suspected Boko Haram members, that a soldier
said killed a lieutenant, sparked a violent retaliation by the army in
Maiduguri, the sect’s spiritual home.
Troops opened fire with assault
rifles and heavy machine guns mounted on armored personnel carriers on a
busy street near the local headquarters of the Nigerian Union of
Journalists, according to witnesses. Afterward, an AP journalist counted
the bodies more than 30 dead civilians and saw more than 50 shops and
homes burned.
The military later denied it killed civilians, but
offered contradictory explanations about what happened. Activists say
they worry that other military strikes against Boko Haram may have
killed civilians as well.
The Human Rights Watch report also
alleges the military, as well as the police, have used torture and
indefinite detentions against the civilian population. One witness who
spoke to the group said he saw soldiers torture an inmate at a Maiduguri
barracks by “pulling on his genitals with a pair of pliers,” while
another peeled the skin of a detainee with a razor. The witness said
soldiers killed another detainee as he hung from a tree.
The
report also claimed the police and military routinely kill and extort
civilians. The military denied the allegations, with the report quoting
officials as saying that they didn’t hold prisoners at the barracks and
that “there is no Guantanamo Bay” in Nigeria.
“Despite
allegations of widespread security force abuses, the Nigerian
authorities have rarely held anyone accountable, thereby denying justice
to the victims and further solidifying the culture of impunity for
violence in Nigeria,” the report reads. “Government officials often
issue blanket denials of reports of alleged human rights violations and
almost never give a public account, in the communities they are meant to
serve, of the measures taken to investigate reports of abuses.”
The
report also went into details about the violence used by Boko Haram,
including killing Christians who refused to convert to Islam. One man
recounted how in 2009 a preacher continued to preach while being held by
Boko Haram members, saying those held “should not betray Jesus.”
“They beat him and then carried him away,” the man recounted. “I saw
one of them cut the back of his neck with a sword. He didn’t die right
away but continued to struggle.”
The Boko Haram violence at times
appears aimed at triggering more ethnic and religious violence in
Nigeria, a nation largely split between a predominantly Muslim north and
a Christian south. Attacks have targeted churches in central Nigeria,
where mass killings have occurred before.
“It is . a strategy by
Boko Haram to bring the government to its knees by creating a war
situation,” a Nigerian journalist said, according to the report.
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