Alwaght- Nigerian police have attacked on Thursday minority Shiite Muslims who took to streets of Abuja, capital city of Nigeria, demanding the release of their leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky.
The protest rally was met by police violent action, which included the security forces firing teargas canisters at supporters of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), led by Zakzaky, local media reported.
On the 12th and 13th of December 2015, the Nigerian military opened fire on Shiites in Zaria leaving 347 people dead, hundreds were injured and many more went missing.
Nigerian soldiers attacked Shiite Muslims attending a ceremony at a religious center in Zaria, accusing them of blocking the convoy of Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai and attempting to assassinate him.
Following the bloodshed, the military moved to detain Zakzaky in December. The clergyman is said to have suffered serious injury as a result of the heavy-handed treatment, which also caused him to lose an eye.
Back in April, the Amnesty’s Research and Advocacy Director for Africa, Netsanet Belay shed some light on the bloodletting, saying, “Bodies were left littered in the streets and piled outside the mortuary. Some of the injured were burned alive.”
“Bodies were taken away, sites were razed to the ground, the rubble removed, bloodstains washed off, and bullets and spent cartridges removed from the streets,” he said.
