Tell FG To Stop Torturing Sowore, SERAP Writes UN Group
The Socio-economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), in defense of the publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, has issued a letter to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, calling for an end to his “arrest, continued detention and torture and ill-treatment” by operatives of the federal government.
“BREAKING: We’ve sent an urgent complaint to UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention over illegal detention and reported torture of Sowore, 4 others simply for peacefully exercising their rights. We’re seeking their immediate release & withdrawal of the bogus charges against them.
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“The Working Group should request the Nigerian authorities to withdraw the bogus charges against Mr Sowore and four other activists, and to immediately and unconditionally release them,” it tweeted.
The development is coming as a Magistrate Court sitting at Wuse Zone 2, Abuja on Monday, ordered that Sowore and some activists be remanded at the Kuje Correctional Centre following charges bordering on unlawful assembly during New Year’s Eve.
Recall that Sowore had on December 31, 2019, called for protest against the “regime” of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The court, however, would hear Sowore’s bail application today, Tuesday.
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Meanwhile, SERAP maintained that the federal government’s attitude towards Sowore is a gross violation of human rights.
“The arrest, continued detention and torture and ill-treatment of Mr Sowore and four others solely for peacefully exercising their human rights to freedom of expression and assembly is a flagrant violation of the Nigerian Constitution, 1999 (as amended) and international law,” it added.
Sowore floated the RevolutionNow campaign in 2019 to (among other things) demand for “a new people’s constitution through a sovereign National Conference”.
