(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned the obstruction and violence by employees of the Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) towards journalists trying to cover a trial and a prison riot in separate incidents on 21 and 20 September 2005. “It is disturbing to see the press being prevented from doing its work,” the organisation said. Sakiry Adeoye […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned the obstruction and violence by employees of the Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) towards journalists trying to cover a trial and a prison riot in separate incidents on 21 and 20 September 2005. “It is disturbing to see the press being prevented from doing its work,” the organisation said.
Sakiry Adeoye of the Ibadan-based daily “Nigeria Tribune” and Dare Fasube of the “Vanguard” were trying to photograph five students accused of murder as they arrived in court on 21 September in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo state, when they were attacked and beaten by members of the defendants’ NPS escort.
The two journalists were detained and were only released several hours later following the intervention of Wale Ojo Lanre, head of the local branch of the Nigerian Union of Journalists. Adeoye was seriously injured and was taken to a hospital in Lagos.
Several journalists who were trying to cover a riot by inmates at Ikoyi prison in Lagos on 20 September were threatened by guards and thrown out of the prison.
In an earlier incident on 22 August, officials denied journalists access to meetings in an investigation into a surge of breakouts from prisons in Port Harcourt and Ogwusi-Uku (see IFEX alert of 29 August 2005).
