Musings From Abroad

Amnesty Int’l insists Nigerian police shot at protesters in August

Published

2 weeks ago

November 29, 2024

According to a study released by Amnesty International on Thursday, at least 24 people were killed when Nigerian police used excessive force and shot at demonstrators during a crackdown on protests in August over a cost of living issue.

The nationwide “#10DaysOfRage” protests against economic hardship were the largest in Nigeria since October 2020.

The Nigeria Police Force did not immediately answer a request for comment on the Amnesty report. Police claimed seven persons had died on August 3 but denied murdering protestors.

When suspected Boko Haram terrorists infiltrated a gathering, they installed an explosive device, which authorities said was responsible for four killings.

According to police, one guy was shot by a local vigilante while attempting to pillage a store, and two individuals were murdered after being struck by a car while marching.

The administration has not made any public remarks regarding the protester fatalities, despite having urged Nigerians to abstain from the protests.

In a 34-page study, Amnesty stated that it had compiled evidence from eyewitness statements, death certificates, and videos and photos. According to the rights group, at least 24 protestors were slain by police in the states of Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Kaduna, Niger, and Borno.

“In almost all cases the victims were shot by the police – firing live ammunition at close range, often at the head or torso, suggesting that they were shooting to kill,” it added.

According to Amnesty International, any claims of violence on protestors should be thoroughly and openly investigated by authorities, and those responsible should be held accountable.

Nigeria released at least 30 kids who had been held during the demonstrations earlier this month after receiving condemnation from rights organisations.

Nigeria’s cost of living situation is the worst in a generation. Costs have increased as a result of President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms, which also included devaluing the naira and eliminating certain energy and petrol subsidies.

Related Topics:Amnesty International Featured Nigeria

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Musings From Abroad

French army begins Chad pullout

Published

2 days ago

December 10, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Just two weeks after local authorities said they were terminating their defence collaboration, the French army announced that jets deployed in the capital N’Djamena had returned home on Tuesday, marking the beginning of France’s military departure from Chad.

The government of Chad, a crucial Western partner in the war against Islamic jihadists in the area, unexpectedly terminated its defence cooperation treaty with France on November 28, a decision that caught French authorities off guard.

It is still unclear how the evacuation will be executed and if any French forces will remain in the central African country at all, even after the first Mirage aircraft returned to their base in eastern France on Tuesday.

“It marks the beginning of the return of French equipment stationed in N’Djamena,” Army spokesperson Colonel Guillaume Vernet said.

Due to anti-French sentiment and military takeovers in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, France has already withdrawn its troops from those West African nations.

Decades of French military participation in the Sahel area came to an end with the departure from Chad, and more recently, French military operations against Islamist extremists in the region were discontinued.

There are still around 1,000 French soldiers in Chad. Vernet stated that it would still take several weeks for the two nations to establish a schedule for reducing its activities.

Musings From Abroad

Court documents show Meta contractor overlooked Ethiopia rebel threats to moderators

Published

2 days ago

December 10, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

New evidence cited by Reuters suggests that a contractor employed by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, overlooked threats against content moderators by Ethiopian rebels during a case contesting the removal of dozens of moderators in Kenya.

Last year, 185 content moderators sued Meta and two contractors for losing their positions with Sama, a Kenyan business that moderated Facebook material, for seeking to form a union.

After Facebook switched contractors, they were barred from applying for the same jobs at Majorel.

Foxglove, a British non-profit helping Ethiopian moderators, submitted court filings on Dec. 4 alleging that Sama ignored their accusations that OLA rebels had targeted them for deleting their videos.

In the petition obtained by Reuters, the moderators said Sama accused them “of creating a false account and manufacturing” the threatening messages before agreeing to a probe and transferring one of the rebels’ officially named moderators to a safe house.

In his statement, Moderator Abdikadir Alio Guyo said that OLA had threatened “content moderators who were constantly pulling down their graphic Facebook Posts.”

“They told us to stop removing their content from Facebook or else we would face dire consequences,” he said, adding that his supervisor dismissed his concerns.
In his declaration, another moderator, Hamza Diba Tubi, stated that OLA sent him a message with the names and addresses of both himself and his coworkers.

“Since I received that threatening message, I have lived in so much fear of even visiting my family members in Ethiopia,” he said.

After peace negotiations in Tanzania in 2023 failed to end a decades-old conflict, the government of Oromiya, Ethiopia’s biggest province, accused OLA rebels of killing “many civilians” in assaults.