Occupy Nigeria: Group petitions UN

Punch

29 January 2012

Occupy Nigeria: Group petitions UN

Spaces for Change, a human rights group, have petitioned the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the National Human Rights Commission, urging both agencies to intervene by providing remedies for persons who suffered human rights abuses during the protests against fuel subsidy removal.

In the report titled, Occupy Nigeria Protests: A Documentation of Human Rights Abuses by Nigerian Security Forces, the group documented the findings of their investigation into several incidents of molestation, maiming and killing of protesters in the six-day protest against the removal of fuel subsidy and corruption in the petroleum downstream sector.

The group says it has forwarded the report to the two agencies as “part of a broader strategy to demand accountability for the massive human rights abuses that characterised the recent Occupy Nigeria protests.”

Victoria Ohaeri, who coordinates the Report Injustices Project of the group, said the report documented the human rights abuses that occurred across Nigeria’s 36 states, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja during the protests.