Rights group slams threat against Ogoni activist

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned a recent invasion by armed men of the home of the leader of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), a minority rights group in the Niger Delta, southeastern Nigeria. In a statement on Friday, the international human rights watchdog said the invasion of the home of MOSOP President Ledum Mitee by eight heavily armed men was evidence of the urgent need to protect critics of the government ahead of general elections in April. The men broke into Mitee's residence in the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt on the night of 22 March and demanded the MOSOP leader, who was abroad at the time. They left after searching the house for him, taking only a mobile phone and harming no one. Political violence and killings have increased in Nigeria in the run up to the country's first polls since President Olusegun Obasanjo's election in 1999 ended more than 15 years of military rule. “Threats and intimidation against political activists are another worrying sign of the level of political violence in the country,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “This comes on top of political assassinations and fighting between supporters of different political factions, which have led to scores of deaths across Nigeria in the last few months.” HRW said Mitee and another MOSOP leader had earlier received threatening phone calls about their politics. Signs that MOSOP officials were being watched by state security agents included the arrest and questioning on 23 March of MOSOP programme officer Legborsi Saro Pyagbara by police at Lagos airport, the group said. Pyagbara was on his way to Geneva to attend a session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. The security officials, who wanted to know why MOSOP was sending him out of Nigeria at that time and what it expected to achieve, released him after four hours, HRW said. MOSOP, was founded in 1990 to campaign for the rights of the Ogoni ethnic minority of the oil-producing Niger Delta. Under late writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa, the group campaigned against oil giant Royal/Dutch Shell for alleged environmental degradation in Ogoniland, resulting in the company's withdrawal from the area in 1993. Under late Nigerian military ruler Gen Sani Abacha, Saro-Wiwa, Mitee and eight other Ogoni activists were charged before a military tribunal for the murder of four rivals. Although the trial was viewed as flawed and condemned internationally, eight of the activists were sentenced to death and hanged in November 1995. Only Mitee was acquitted. HRW said MOSOP under Mitee had been critical of the ruling People's Democratic Party and the government over the use of violence against political opponents. Actions that may have angered his opponents, it said, included interviews by the MOSOP leader and the fact that, at meetings MOSOP organised with politicians in Ogoniland, he had urged Ogonis not to vote for candidates who supported violence.