H.E. Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua
President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
c/o Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
3519 International Court, NW
Washington, DC 20008
Fax: (202) 362.6552
Your Excellency:
We write to express our alarm and concern over recent arrests and attacks against journalists in your country.
We condemn the arrest of Emmanuel Emeka Asiwe, editor of the on-line publication, HuhuOnline, (http://www.huhuonline.com), which he founded in 2007. A United States national, he was detained at the Muritala Muhammed International Airport on his arrival from the United States on 28 October. Asiwe was visiting his sick mother and attending to family matters. He is reportedly being held at the headquarters of the Internal Intelligence Service, the State Security Service (SSS) in Abuja. He is the second blogger to be arrested in Nigeria within a week.
The first on-line journalist, Jonathan Elendu (http://elendureports.com), was imprisoned for eleven days, from 18 to 29 October, because of articles posted on his Web site. He had returned to Abuja from his base in the United States to make two documentaries about the current situation in your country. On his release, he described his experience as the “worst of my life.”
The Overseas Press Club of America, an independent organization of journalists, has defended press freedom around the world for nearly seventy years. Bloggers are clearly journalists entitled to all the rights established by Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and any journalist harassed by your government for attempting to communicate with Nigeria’s five million Internet users seriously concerns our members.
We are also saddened and dismayed by the murder of Paul Abayomi Ogundeji, a reporter for the privately-owned daily, Thisday, and a member of its editorial board. He was gunned down in Lagos on 17 August, less than two years after Godwin Agbroko, the chairman of Thisday’s editorial board, was killed in similar circumstances. According to initial police information, Ogundeji was shot dead in the Lagos neighborhood of Dopemu at around 11 p.m., as he was returning home by car. Gunmen were said to have blocked his way, told him to open his car door, and opened fire when he refused.
Several prominent human rights organizations have written to your police commissioner, Ali Amadu, of the Special Investigation Unit, who is in charge of the case, asking him to ensure that the investigation is “credible and transparent” and that all leads are followed up. This includes information provided to the inspector general of police by Thisday managing director, Eniola Bello, which indicates that police officers may have been involved in the crime. We urge you to press for an urgent conclusion to the murder investigation, and to call an immediate halt to the harassment of on-line journalists in your country.
We look forward to your response.
Respectfully yours,
Tala Dowlatshahi
Larry Martz
Freedom of the Press Committee
cc:
H.E. Oluwole Rotimi
Ambassador of Nigeria to the U.S.A.
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
3519 International Court, NW
Washington, DC 20008
Fax: (202) 362.6552
Ambassador Aminu Bashir Wali
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the United Nations
828 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Fax: (212) 697.1970
H.E. Robin Sanders
U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria
Embassy of the United States of America
P.O. Box 554
Lagos
Nigeria
Editor
The Guardian
Lagos
Nigeria
editday@ngrguardiannews.com