Court Orders Release Of Kano Man Arrested For Alleged ‘Provocative Posts Against Muslims’

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has ordered the Nigeria Police Force to release Mubarak Bala, (president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria) who was accused of blasphemy against Islam.

Justice Inyang Ekwo passed the verdict on Monday following a fundamental rights application filed by Bala’s lawyer.

THE WHISTLER earlier reported that Bala’s arrest on April 28, 2020 came after a group of lawyers wrote a petition against him to the Kano State Commissioner of Police.

They had alleged that Bala, a Kano resident “has since then been writing stuffs on his Facebook page that are provocative and annoying to Muslims.”

Bala was said to have renounced Islam in 2014 and adopted atheism as his new faith.

In his judgement on Monday, Justice Ekwo frowned on the police for not appearing in court over the matter and for detaining Bala for months “because he expressed his option about religion on Facebook, constitutes an infraction of the applicant’s rights to personal liberty, fair hearing, freedom of thought, freedom of express and freedom of movement”, Punch reports.

He also stated that the police violated the constitution “in denying the applicant access to his lawyer.

Punch reports that he ordered “the respondents to release the applicant from detention to his lawyers on bail forthwith”.