Human Rights Watch and Northern Nigeria

by John Campbell
October 15, 2012

The distinguished human rights non-governmental organization (NGO) Human Rights Watch has issued an anticipated report on Boko Haram and security force abuses in northern Nigeria; Spiraling Violence.  It provides a close analysis of Boko Haram and the government’s disastrous response to date…….Many Boko Haram atrocities have been described before, but not with the precision of Human Rights Watch. However, new to me were the instances of Boko Haram affiliates posing to individual Christian men the choice of conversion to Islam or death, usually by having their throats cut.  Such episodes are more “upfront and personal” than, say, church bombings, even if the casualties from the latter are greater.  In echoes of third century persecution of Christians in the arenas of Rome, Human Rights Watch documents instances in which Christians chose death rather than the forced embrace of Islam…….The second half of the Human Rights Watch report deals with the reported abuses committed by the security services. It provides a greater degree of specificity than I have seen before, and demonstrates that the government’s heavy handed security approach to the political issues in the north is dysfunctional and counter-productive. In what is bound to be highly controversial, Human Rights Watch suggests that the International Criminal Court assess whether crimes committed in Nigeria both by Boko Haram and the security services fall under its jurisdiction as crimes against humanity.  To Read More….