Rights groups accuse Commonwealth host Nigeria

by Reuters published on December 06, 2003 in Alert News

Human rights groups on Saturday accused Commonwealth summit host Nigeria of undermining freedom of expression and harassing journalists and activists who expose government abuses.

They urged Nigeria to allow opposition supporters and other activists to freely express their views, and to order security forces not to detain anyone on the basis of political views.

"(The government should) issue clear instructions to the police that they should not use force or violence to respond to peaceful protests," said the New York-based Human Rights Watch on the second day of the three-day summit, which ends on Monday in Abuja.

The group listed scores of what it said were examples of police excesses, and harassment and intimidation of media and the opposition in Africa's largest democracy.

A Nigerian government official rejected the accusations saying, "We keep to the highest standards."

Nigeria emerged from 15 years of army rule in 1999, when retired General Olusegun Obasanjo was voted in as president. Obasanjo, himself a military ruler in the 1970s, has often been accused of failing to rein in security forces since then.

Violence and fraud allegations marred presidential, legislative and regional elections in April and May. But since then, the government has made efforts to improve its image, notably by launching a reform and anti-corruption drive lauded by Western diplomats and donors.

Other rights activists urged Nigeria and Commonwealth heads of state to agree to a peer review monitoring of its governance and human rights record before each summit to ensure they complied with the group's goals on democracy.

Some 250 human rights groups under the umbrella of the India-based Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria and the Nigeria Legal Resources Consortium also told Commonwealth leaders to fight poverty, which they saw as a serious human rights violation.

"The existence of so much poverty is a human rights violation and its persistence demonstrates failures of governance in the Commonwealth," the groups said after two days of talks on the sidelines of the Commonwealth summit.

The 54-member Commonwealth includes wealthy countries such as Britain and Canada as well as impoverished ones like Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland.

The groups urged the Commonwealth to pile pressure on Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, whom they accused of promoting political violence, widespread hunger, unemployment and the collapse of social services.

Zimbabwe is suspended from the Commonwealth and Mugabe was not invited to the Abuja. However, Mugabe's government has previously blamed what it sees as a hate campaign led by Britain for its increasing political and economic woes.