Human Rights and advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned the alleged arrest and detention of about 300 suspected members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), some of them pregnant women without prosecution by the Ebonyi State government and pressed for their immediate release.
HURIWA asked Governor Dave Umahi to order the unconditional release of the detainees as their incarceration had violated their fundamental human rights and breached the maximum number of days permissible without prosecution.
The body also prayed the National Human Rights Commission to take up the case and ensure the constitutionally guaranteed freedom were not trampled on while they should conduct routine visits to prisons in Ebonyi State to see things for themselves and protect the vulnerable.
The rights body in a media statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said it was shameful that Ebonyi State could be used as a slave or labour camp for citizens caught in conflict with the law only because they belonged to the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) for months without following due process of the law.
“We are worried that the nation has a national institution for the promotion and protection of Human Rights known as the National Human Rights Commission, yet we have 300 accused members of IPOB some of them pregnant woman being kept in pre-trial detention facilities that aren’t habitable even when they are to be presumed innocent until convicted by the court of law as stipulated constitutionally. This is a shame of the 21st century and to think that the Ebonyi State Governor is the Chairman of Igbo governors makes the entire scenario even the more worrisome and pathetic,” they said.
The statement recalled that the Media and Publicity Secretary of IPOB, Emma Powerful had alleged incessant arrests and killings of its members without trial.
HURIWA also regretted as unfortunate, the continued humiliation of counsel to Nnamdi Kanu by the Directorate of State Services (DSS) each time Ifeanyi Ejiofor visits him in their custody.
“According to Ejiofor, DSS operatives disgraced them on Thursday by forcing them to remove their shoes, glasses. According to Ejiofor, they were offered slippers after being searched like ‘hardened offenders,” the statement said.
