Rights body asks Bush to condemn police brutality

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has asked US President George Bush to "strongly condemn" Nigerian police brutality during his stop in the country on Friday. It also urged Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to make a commitment not to shield Liberian President Charles Taylor from justice. Bush was expected in Nigeria late on Friday on the last leg of a five-nation African tour that took him to Senegal, South African, Botswana and Uganda. HRW said that over the past two weeks several Nigerians had been shot dead by the police and others severely beaten. These incidents, HRW said, formed part of a broader pattern of increased harassment and intimidation of critics by the Nigerian government. "Bush is coming to Nigeria at a critical moment. He can't ignore this violence," the executive director of HRW's Africa division Peter Takirambudde said. "The improvements in civil liberties since the advent of civilian rule in Nigeria are now being reversed." Concerning Obasanjo's recent offer to grant President Taylor "safe haven" in his country, HRW said that despite his championing the notions of human rights and justice in international fora, he appeared ready to allow the Liberian president to evade justice. Taylor is under international pressure to resign to pave way for a peaceful resolution of the Liberian crisis, where over a decade of fighting has completely devastated the country. On Sunday, he said he was willing to go into exile in Nigeria. "There is an international indictment against Charles Taylor for war crimes and crimes against humanity," Takirambudde said. "By letting him off the hook, President Obasanjo would be signaling his complete disregard for the principle of justice, which unfortunately tends to mirror the situation within Nigeria itself." It documented several incidents from early this month in which police either fired live shots at protestors killing some, arrested and detained people at unknown locations. "President Bush cannot pretend it is business as usual in Nigeria when people have been brutalised by the police only days before his visit," he added. HRW urged the Nigerian government to issue clear instructions to the police to allow peaceful protests and to refrain from using excessive force against people who are not engaging in violence. "It should also release those arrested in connection with the protest at the US embassy unless there are grounds for charging them with a recognisable criminal offence." On 3 July, about 30 people were arrested in Abuja after delivering a petition to the US embassy protesting President Bush's visit to Nigeria on the grounds that it conferred legitimacy on Obasanjo's government. Five days later they remained in detention without charge in an undisclosed location, HRW said. In a related development, President Obasanjo asked the country's Inspector General of Police Tafa Balogun to probe the allegations of gross human rights abuses by the police during the recent workers' strike that led to the death of at least nine people, The Guardian newspaper reported on Friday. The strike which went on for eight days was called by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to protest the increase in fuel prices by the federal government. It was called off on Tuesday after the leaders of NLC, accepted a compromise offer by government offer of 34 naira (US $0.26) for a litre of petrol or a 31 percent hike instead of the 54 percent increase announced by the government on 20 June. "The President is happy that the strike is over so that the nation can face the issue of development and he has ordered the inspector general of police to fish out the perpetrators of the violence. They will be made to face the full wrath of the law," Obasanjo's special assistant Remi Oyo told journalists.