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LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Rebels from the Boko Haram extremist group claimed responsibility Tuesday for abducting hundreds of boys from a school in Nigeria’s northern Katsina State last week in one of the largest such attacks in years,...
He replaces Debretsion Gebremichael, whose immunity from prosecution was removed Thursday.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Thursday that scores of civilians were killed in a \"massacre\" in the Tigray region, that witnesses blamed on forces backing the local ruling party.
The \"massacre\" is the first reported incident of large-scale civilian fatalities in a week-old conflict between the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
\"Amnesty International can today confirm... that scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the southwest of Ethiopia's Tigray Region on the night of 9 November,\" the rights group said in a report.
Amnesty said it had \"digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers.\"
The dead \"had gaping wounds that appear to have been inflicted by sharp weapons such as knives and machetes,\" Amnesty said, citing witness accounts.
Witnesses said the attack was carried out by TPLF-aligned forces after a defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian military, though Amnesty said it \"has not been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings\".
It nonetheless called on TPLF commanders and officials to \"make clear to their forces and their supporters that deliberate attacks on civilians are absolutely prohibited and constitute war crimes\".
Abiy ordered military operations in Tigray on November 4, saying they were prompted by a TPLF attack on federal military camps -- a claim the party denies.
The region has been under a communications blackout ever since, making it difficult to verify competing claims on the ground.
Abiy said Thursday his army had made major gains in western Tigray.
Thousands of Ethiopians have fled across the border into neighboring Sudan, and the UN is sounding the alarm about a humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
A teacher beheaded on a street near Paris on Friday afternoon has been named as Samuel Paty by French Education MinisterJean-Michel Blanquer.
The suspected killer, who officials said was an 18-year-old Chechen refugee, was armed with a knife and a plastic pellet gun, was later shot dead by officers in a nearby town, police said.
French authorities have launched an anti-terror investigation.
President Emmanuel Macron called it an \"assassination\" and an \"Islamist terrorist attack\".
Here's what we know about the attack so far:
Who was the victim?
Paty, a 47-year-old history and geography teacher, was decapitated near the school in the commune of Conflans Saint-Honorine, northwest of the French capital, at around 5 pm local time.
Police told the AFP news agency that he had hosted a class discussion with secondary school students about cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
Some Muslim parents said they had complained to the school and French media reported Paty had received a number of threats in the wake of the class.
Blanquer said the school had taken \"appropriate\" steps in response to the complaints in setting up measures that both \"supported the teacher and opened up a dialogue with parents\".
The minister added he would prepare a pedagogical \"framework\" on how to address the attack with students when they returned to school after half term. He said a minute's silence would be organised.
President Emmanuel Macron visited the Bois d'Aulne school and met the history teacher's colleagues on Friday evening.
He said afterwards: \"One of our citizens was assassinated tonight because he was a teacher, because he taught students about the liberty of expression, the liberty to believe or not to believe.
\"Our countryman was the victim of a cowardly attack. The victim of an Islamist terrorist attack.\"
AFP
President Emmanuel Macron called the attack an \"assassination\" said AFP
Who was the alleged perpetrator?
His alleged attacker was reported to be 18 years old, of Chechen origin and born in Moscow.
Officials said he was shot dead in the neighbouring town of Éragny after he acted in a threatening manner and failed to respond to an order to put down his weapons.
Officials said he was unknown to intelligence services.
French anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard told reporters the suspect, who had been granted a 10-year residency in France as a refugee in March, was armed with a knife and an airsoft gun, which fires plastic pellets.
His half-sister joined the Islamic State group in Syria in 2014, Ricard said. He didn't give her name, and it is not clear where she is now.
The prosecutor said a text claiming responsibility and a photograph of the victim were found on the suspect's phone.
He also confirmed that a Twitter account under the name Abdoulakh A belonged to the suspect. It posted a photo of the decapitated head minutes after the attack along with the message “I have executed one of the dogs from hell who dared to put Muhammad down.”
Ricard said the suspect had been seen
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has kicked against self-medication of any kind by COVID-19 patients in the country.
The Presidential Task Force (PTF) on the COVID-19 pandemic Thursday warned the public to stay away from quarantined returnees from foreign countries.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the PTF, Mr. Boss Mustapha, who gave the warning yesterday during the daily press briefing by the task force in Abuja, warned that such visits were potentially dangerous to public health.
He, however, called on state governments, local government council authorities as well as security agencies; to afford farmers unfettered access, noting that Nigeria could not afford food insecurity as the nation's security depended on its food security.
Mustapha also pointed to the fact that the testing strategy adopted by the task force had proven to be successful, even as it had confirmed the fact that Nigeria now had the capacity to give care to all those who needed it.
Some recalcitrant Sunyani residents who failed to wear their face masks were yesterday arrested and made to undertake clean-up exercise for some hours by security agencies who were on the streets to enforce directives and protocols of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) announced by the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
The Sunyani COVID-19 Prevention Taskforce led by Supt. Haruna Alhassan of the Ghana Immigration Service were on the streets of Sunyani to ensure that residents adhered to the directives and protocols announced by the President to check the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the area.
The taskforce was made up of representatives from the Sunyani Municipal Assembly, Sunyani Traditional Council and Service Commanders of the various security agencies in the Bono Region.
Supt. Haruna Alhassan told the Ghanaian Times that the operation was not only limited to the Sunyani area, but other suburbs such as Chiraa, Odumase, Kwatiri, Fiapre and Adentia, among others.
He noted that although the region had not witnessed a surge in the COVID-19 cases after it recorded a case in March this year, authorities are not leaving anything to chance, hence such punitive measures adopted to deter the people from flouting the order to wear their masks.
If philanthropy can be defined as the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed by the generous donation of money to good causes, then for centuries, philanthropic activities have done a lot of good.
The tactics of persons linked with organized crime groups, utilizing philanthropy or charity to provide material benefits to people that have been victims of their actions is not novel, neither is it restricted to one region.
Besides beheadings and carrying out deadly attacks on soft targets, both terrorist groups have been known to provide social services within their strongholds in Somalia and Nigeria, as a means of recruiting soldiers and maintaining a long list of informants.
Philanthropy has been defined as an “altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement, usually manifested by donations of money, property, or work to needy persons, by endowment of institutions of learning and hospitals, and by generosity to other socially useful purposes.”
Doing something good to justify doing something bad
For decades, organized criminal groups have employed philanthropy to good effect in one way or the other.
On Friday, 22nd May 2020, Dr Blyden was charged with ten counts of seditious libel under Sections 33, 32 and 27 of the notorious Public Order Act No 46 of 1965, which successive governments of Sierra Leone have used to harass, intimidate and persecute those with whom they disagree, especially journalists.
According to Section 33 (1), “any person who (a) does or attempts to do, or makes any preparation to do, or conspires with any person to do, any act with a seditious intention; or (b) utters any seditious words; or (c) prints, publishes, sells, offers for sale, distributes or reproduces any seditious publication; or (d) imports any seditious publication, unless he has no reason to believe it is seditious shall be guilty of an offence and liable for a first offence to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or to a fine not exceeding one thousand leones or to both such imprisonment and fine, and for a subsequent offence shall be imprisoned for a term not exceeding seven years, and every such publication shall be forfeited to the government.”
Section 32 (1) – “Any person who publishes any false statement, rumour or report which is likely to cause fear or alarm, to the public or to disturb the public peace shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding three hundred Leones or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding twelve months, or to both such fine and imprisonment.
(2) Any person who publishes any false statement, rumour or report which is calculated to bring into disrepute any person who holds an office under the Constitution, in the discharge of his duties shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding five hundred Leones or to imprisonment not exceeding two years or both.”
Section 27 – “Any person who maliciously publishes any defamatory matter shall be guilty of an offence called libel and liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding seven hundred Leones or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or to both such fine and imprisonment.”
[Monitor] Presidential candidates have condemned the violence meted out on candidates and supporters of the National Unity Platform (NUP) and the Forum Democratic Change (FDC) Opposition political parties.
Six Nigerian soldiers were killed in a jihadist attack on a military base in northeastern Nigeria, military sources disclosed on Sunday.
“We lost six soldiers in the attacks launched by the terrorists on Saturday around 6:30 p.m.,” one officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.
We lost six soldiers in the attacks launched by the terrorists on Saturday around 6:30 p.m.
The army is searching for 45 soldiers who could not be located but who it believes managed to escape, the source added.
ISWAP, which has split off from Boko Haram to affiliate with the EI, has been stepping up attacks against the armed forces and has killed dozens, if not hundreds, of Nigerian soldiers.
[The Point] In Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement, the author Alexander Thurston, an African studies professor at Georgetown University, systematically examines the movement's origins and offers a comprehensive discussion of the interrelated factors that led to the emergence and rise of Boko Haram in north-eastern Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin. The book is organised into five chapters ('The Lifeworld of Muhammad Yusuf', 'Preaching Exclusivism, Playing Politics', 'Chaos is Worse Than Killing', 'T
In 1997, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda – an international court established by the UN in 1994 to judge people responsible for the genocide – indicted Kabuga for his role.
It was set up to perform the remaining functions of both the Rwanda tribunal and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
The International Criminal Court was set up to hear cases of crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression crimes.
From my experience working in Rwanda, Rwandans perceive international-based justice as aiding the conscience of the international community, which failed to intervene before or during the genocide.
The original warrant for his arrest was issued by the now-dissolved International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Nigeria must urgently address its failure to protect and provide education to an entire generation of children in the Northeast, a region devastated by years of Boko Haram atrocities and gross violations by the military, Amnesty International warned today in a chilling new report.
The 91-page report, 'We dried our tears': Addressing the toll on children of Northeast Nigeria's conflict, examines how the military's widespread unlawful detention and torture have compounded the suffering of children from Borno and Adamawa states who faced war crimes and crimes against humanity at the hands of Boko Haram.
Between November 2019 and April 2020, Amnesty International interviewed more than 230 people affected by the conflict, including 119 who were children when they suffered serious crimes by Boko Haram, the Nigerian military, or both.
Military detention
Children who escape Boko Haram territory face a raft of violations by the Nigerian authorities, also including crimes under international law.
A 14-year-old boy whom Boko Haram abducted as a young child before he fled and was placed in detention by the Nigerian military, said: \"The conditions in Giwa are horrible.
The police chief called on Nigerians to join in efforts to tackle rape and other sexual violence by ensuring prompt report of cases and working with the police to apprehend the suspects.
\"I will call on every Nigerian that comes across any victim of sexual offences, rape or gender-based violence to quickly report to law enforcement agents because keeping quiet without reporting it will give room for the perpetrators to continue to commit the offences,\" he said.
\"It has come to the public knowledge now that because of the COVID-19 restrictions, we have a surge in cases of rape and gender-based violence.
These are cases that are now coming up but we want to let members of the public know that, rape and gender-based violence has been there.
\"The police and other security agencies and other Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have been collaborating, to see to it that these cases of rape and gender-based violence are dealt with.
The area is known for oil spills that have polluted the waters and left fish and other wildlife inedible.
The massive die-off was first reported in February when community people in Delta State complained of the schools of dead fish floating and littering their shores.
Samples of the fish were taken by the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA).
Idris Musa, head of NOSDRA, declared the die-off had nothing to do with the continual oil leakages from offshore platforms as claimed over the years by Amnesty International, the U.N. Environmental Program, the Fishnet Alliance, and dozens of other groups in and outside of Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) this month said that the dead fishes floating and littering the Niger Delta coastline had nothing to do with its operations.
Press Release - Egyptian human rights activist Sanaa Seif was detained today outside the Public Prosecutor's office in New Cairo, where she was waiting to file a complaint after suffering a violent assault. Amnesty International is calling for her immediate release and an end to the \"relentless harassment\" of her and her family.
July 2: Hachalu buried in Ambo, blast rocks Addis
\tThe funeral of Oromo protest singer Hachalu Hundessa has been held in his hometown of Ambo in the Oromia regional state, the BBC reports.
Photos courtesy: BBC Africa LIVE page
\tMeanwhile there are reports of a deadly blast in the capital Addis Ababa with most people on Twitter citing local police.
The arrest comes in the wake of mass protests against the shooting and killing on Monday night of a famed Oromo musician and activist in Addis Ababa.
Meanwhile, his media outfit the Oromia Media Network, OMN, reported on Tuesday that its offices in the capital Addis Ababa had been raided and staff taken away by security agents to an undisclosed location.
Death of Oromo artist: Protests, internet outage, social media reactions
\tThousands of Ethiopian youth on Tuesday accompanied the body of a famed Oromo singer and songwriter to the city of Ambo in the Oromia regional state for funeral rites and burial.
More than 300 schoolboys kidnapped in northwest Nigeria were handed over to government security, the Katsina state governor said in a televised interview on Thursday.
[This Day] In what appeared to be at variance with its earlier claim that over 110 civilians were killed in the attack on a rice field by Boko Haram in Borno State, the United Nations yesterday said \"tens of civilians\" were killed in the incident.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed that the country has recorded about $48 million (or N17 billion) loss to oil theft this year alone based on the benchmark oil price exchange rate of N360/$1.
The corporation's Group Managing Director, Mallam Mele Kyari, made this disclosure at an interactive hearing on 'Exiting Petroleum Subsidy: Ensuring Self-Sufficiency in Domestic Refining of Petroleum Products' by the Senate Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream and Downstream).
Speaking on the volume of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) being consumed daily in the country, the GMD said the corporation had no knowledge of the daily consumption of petroleum products or volume being
He clarified: \"We don't know how much petroleum we consume daily in this country, but we know how much of product is taken out of depots.\"
On the state of the country's refineries, Kyari said NNPC \"deliberately\" shut down the Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt refineries for two reasons, namely the low value of extracted or refined products and inability of the corporation to guarantee crude oil supply to these lines.
Speaking further on why the poor state of the refineries, Kyari said the corporation spent N64 billion to resuscitate Kaduna refinery without achieving any meaningful result.
If completed, the sale would be the first American transfer of lethal drones and stealth aircraft to any Arab country.
Fighters from the Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP), Boko Haram branch, in trucks equipped with machine guns, attacked the Auno base, 25 km from Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, the sources said.
The clashes lasted for two hours until the overwhelmed Nigerian military was forced to retreat, another military source said, confirming this assessment.
The attackers looted weapons and burned buildings inside the base before being repelled with air support, according to the same source.
The area has recently been targeted by a series of attacks on the army and abductions of drivers at fake security force checkpoints.
ISWAP, which has split off from Boko Haram to affiliate with the EI, has been stepping up attacks against the armed forces and has killed dozens, if not hundreds, of Nigerian soldiers. But it is also increasingly accused of attacking civilians.
In February, at least 30 passengers and lorry drivers forced to stop for the night at the entrance to Auno because of an army imposed curfew were killed in an attack blamed on jihadists.
More than 36,000 people were killed and about two million displaced in a decade of conflict in northeastern Nigeria.
Six doctors and two pharmacists arrested, and medics transferred to quarantine hospitals for speaking out
Pregnant doctor detained after her phone used to report coronavirus case
'The Egyptian authorities are handling the COVID-19 crisis with their usual repressive tactics' - Philip Luther
The Egyptian authorities have been using \"terrorism\" and \"spreading false news\" charges to arrest healthcare workers who have spoken out over safety concerns during the country's COVID-19 crisis, said Amnesty International.
Amnesty has documented the cases of eight healthcare workers - six doctors and two pharmacists - arbitrarily detained between March and June by Egypt's notorious National Security Agency (NSA) for online and social media posts expressing their concerns (see cases below).
Sources from the Doctors Syndicate also told Amnesty that healthcare workers who speak out have been transferred to isolation hospitals where patients who have contracted COVID-19 are quarantined, or to hospitals in other governorates.
This does not include doctors who died with COVID-19 symptoms but were not tested, and also excludes the death toll among nurses, dentists, pharmacists, technicians, delivery workers, cleaning staff and other essential healthcare workers.
Medics arrested
On 28 March - the National Security Agency arrested Alaa Shaaban Hamida, a 26-year-old doctor, at the El Shatby University Hospital in Alexandria where she works, after a nurse used her phone to report a case of coronavirus to the health ministry's hotline.
Anti-Police Brutality Protest Sees Police Brutality
National armed forces opened fire on Nigerian youth in Lagos at an anti-police brutality demonstration on Tuesday — injuring around 50 people and shooting at least 20 dead, as per unconfirmed reports
Amnesty International which has already condemned the use of excessive force by the Nigerian police to subdue protesters, stated there was ``\"credible but disturbing evidence'' of the incident.
\"While we continue to investigate the killings, Amnesty International wishes to remind the authorities that under international law, security forces may only resort to the use of lethal force when strictly unavoidable to protect against the imminent threat of death or serious injury,\" Amnesty tweeted.
#EndSARS, #EndSWAT and Police Reform.
The escalation in violence comes two weeks after the #EndSarsNow movement took to the streets across Nigeria, following the circulation of video showing a man being beaten, apparently by police officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, known as SARS.
The government proclaimed the dissolution of the police unit which has been accused of human rights crimes including abuse, torture and killings but has since created the Special Weapons and Tactics team (SWAT) in its stead further inciting the youth to seek complete police reform.
The global call for police to step back is growing louder.
[Monitor] The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Martin Okoth Ochola Friday refuted reports that police are targeting journalists covering elections that have been marred by violence, arguing that security personnel have been using reasonable force to retrain the press for their own safety.
Youthful online stars shine in Monologue Challenge
Friday, June 5, 2020 0:01
By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU
Brenda Wairimu one of the judges of the NPAS (Nairobi Performing Arts Studio) Monologue Challenge.
PHOTO | MARGARETTA WA GACHERU | NMG
More than 100 young people, mainly secondary school students, zoomed in from around the country last Sunday night to watch the Finale Monologue Challenge online.
Organised by the Nairobi Performing Arts Studio (NPAS), with an endorsement from the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Heritage, the Challenge was the culmination of a month-long series of free online performing arts classes run specifically for Kenyan high school-age youth.
“The interest was so high that we had to open four acting classes and two singing ones,” says Nash who has produced and directed shows such as Annie, Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar and Caucasian Chalk Circle among others since coming to Kenya initially at the request of one local private school.
Thanks to the popularity and success of Nash’s experiment in online theatre instruction, there will be a second series starting June 15 with registration opening from June 7th.
