VARIOUS-BOKO HARAM-RIGHTS ABUSES Concern mounts over rights abuses in regional fight against Boko Haram

Record ID: 151932

  • Title: VARIOUS-BOKO HARAM-RIGHTS ABUSES Concern mounts over rights abuses in regional fight against Boko Haram
  • Date: 24th June 2015
  • Summary: NIAMEY, NIGER (RECENT) (REUTERS) STREET SCENES
  • Embargoed: 9th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4Y7AZHOM8DZFBX0VEBK8JTRC4
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: =====PLEASE NOTE, EDIT CONTAINS SOME ORIGINALLY 4:3 MATERIAL====
    The detention for several months of 84 children in Cameroon has highlighted concern that the regional campaign against Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram is leading to rights abuses.
    On Friday (June 19), Amnesty International called for the release of the children, some as young as five, detained during a raid in December on Islamic schools in Cameroon's Far North which authorities said were Boko Haram training camps.
    The report came as Niger's National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH), an independent government body, denounced a wave of arbitrary detentions under a four-month-old state of emergency to fight Boko Haram. It said some detainees had been tortured.
    Neighbouring Chad, meanwhile, pledged on Friday to round up beggars and some foreigners as part of a crackdown, days after attacks on its capital blamed on the Islamist group killed 34 people.
    The countries' joint offensive with Nigeria this year has liberated large swathes of territory from Boko Haram, which has killed thousands of civilians in a six-year campaign to carve out an Islamic state.
    But Amnesty voiced concern that the crackdown risked a repetition of the kind of heavy handed tactics used by security forces in Nigeria, where it said this month more than 8,000 people had died in detention.
    "I think it's very clear that there's a real risk of human rights violations in all of the countries threatened by Boko Haram. I think we've seen that in Niger, in Chad, in Cameroon, of course more than anything else, in Nigeria. I think we are quite clear, our message, that the countries that are also threatened by Boko Haram do not have to repeat the same mistakes and the same errors as Nigeria, which for a number of years has tried to fight Boko Haram using quite indiscriminate means and as we showed recently in our report in committing war crimes," Steve Cockburn, Amnesty's deputy regional director, told Reuters.
    In Cameroon, Amnesty documented a rise in arbitrary arrests by security forces and disappearances in Cameroon between November and February following a spike in Boko Haram attacks.
    In Niger, the CNDH said this week the abrupt evacuation of tens of thousands of people from around Lake Chad following a Boko Haram attack on April 25 had worsened a humanitarian crisis in the poor region, leading to loss of life. At least 74 soldiers and civilians were killed in the attack.
    Niger said last month it had detained and charged 643 people for links to Boko Haram under the state of emergency declared in February.
    The CNDH report found that at least 38 people freed by the courts were still being held.
    Earlier this month, thousands of Nigeriens held protests against what they term as arbitrary arrests.
    "Democracy in this country has taken a hit and we have really noticed, against our will, that for the last two or three years now there has been a shift in democracy in this country, orchestrated by the authorities," said one protester, Boukar Lamine.
    Human rights activists have also criticised the government's actions, citing measures under the state of emergency - including a ban on motorcycles and the sale of fish and red peppers - which were meant to strangle Boko Haram's financing was hitting the local population hardest.
    "These are highly serious issues today. From an economic standpoint, this region is stifled, right? And it isn't normal. I think that most measures maybe affect the population more than Boko Haram," said human rights campaigner Moussa Tchangari.
    But government officials say that although the first days of the evacuation were chaotic, the situation quickly stabilised.
    "The problem with my civil society friends is that they think it's the government and the defense and security forces that should be condemned, and they forget that the main enemy is Boko Haram," said Niger's Justice minister Amadou Marou.
    A new multinational force of 8,700 troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin to combat the insurgency in the Lake Chad region is set to become operational in the coming weeks.
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