El-Zakzaky Was Being Prosecuted For His Religious Belief- IMN

The Islamic Movement in Nigeria(IMN) has said that El-Zakzaky was being prosecuted for his religious beliefs.

This response followed a statement made by the Minister of Information, Lai Muhammed, that the Shi’ites leader, Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, was being tried for crimes and not for his religious beliefs.

The IMN made this in a statement on Monday, in response to the minister’s reaction to the addition of Nigeria, Comoros, Russia, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Sudan to the Special Watch List of countries that had engaged in or tolerated the severe violation of religious freedom.

Ekohotblog reported that the United States Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, had announced in a statement in Washington on Friday, that Nigeria had been added to the SWL for engaging in religious persecution.

Pompeo’s announcement followed the release of the 2018 report of the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom which recommended Nigeria’s designation as a country of particular concern.

The information minister had in his reaction on Sunday, contested the placement of Nigeria on the list, noting that El-Zakzaky was facing trial for crimes against the state.

But the Shi’ites spokesperson, Ibrahim Musa, in a statement said officials of the Buhari regime deserved to be held for crimes for allegedly engaging in extra-judicial killings.

“If anyone deserves to be held and tried for crimes, it would be the top officials of the Buhari government who killed over a thousand unarmed citizens extrajudicially and buried them in mass graves, and have used all the might of governance to hide the truth and obstruct the course of justice,” he noted.

Musa said that the persecution of IMN members by the current regime was known to the international community, adding that it was a subject of a preliminary investigation by the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

 

He stated: “Furthermore, many local and international human rights organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Islamic Human Rights Commission have all investigated and documented the atrocities meted on members of the Islamic Movement and its leadership, purely based on their religious beliefs.

“That the ongoing persecution of the Islamic Movement has drawn the attention of the world, especially very lately, the United States government is a reality that no forms of lies by Mr Lai (Mohammed) can obliterate.”