(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) – The following is an ARTICLE 19 call for action: **Updates IFEX alerts of 12 May, 11 May, 5 May, 3 May, 30 April, 28 April, 20 April, 13 April and 17 February 1999** URGENT ACTION THE TRIAL AND PERSECUTION OF LANRE AROGUNDADE. The Chairman of the Lagos Council of The Nigeria Union […]
(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) – The following is an ARTICLE 19 call for action:
**Updates IFEX alerts of 12 May, 11 May, 5 May, 3 May, 30 April, 28 April,
20 April, 13 April and 17 February 1999**
URGENT ACTION
THE TRIAL AND PERSECUTION OF LANRE AROGUNDADE.
The Chairman of the Lagos Council of The Nigeria Union Of Journalists Mr
Lanre Arogundade is facing serious persecution by way of a trumped up murder
charge. If “found guilty”, the penalty is death by hanging. He has been in
police custody since the 25th of April 1999.
Just as with the case of Ken Saro Wiwa, the Nigerian regime has chosen the
method of using a charge, which they can claim is not political, and thus
hope to undermine support for Arogundade.
This trial is the latest in actions by the government and its agents, to
weaken or take over the Lagos NUJ which is the largest council with
membership of journalists working in over seventy percent of the independent
media.
WHAT IFEX MEMBERS, OTHER PRESS / MEDIA BASED AND HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATIONS
CAN DO
The above and other organisations can in addition to actions they have
already taken, intervene in this case in the following ways (not necessarily
in order of importance)
CAMPAIGNS.
1. Bringing the case to the attention of the parliamentary human rights
committee of various countries with a view to seeking government
condemnation of continued abuses, and drawing parallels with the case of Ken
Saro Wiwa.
2. Consider doing the same to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights
UNCHR, The European Commission, and the Commonwealth Ministerial Action
Group CMAG.
3. Approaching other similar bodies with a view to getting them to
intervene.
4. Organise the writing of protest letters by members and other
organisations and persons, to Nigerian Embassies and High Commissions, the
Nigerian government and media in your country and Nigeria. (See below for
details of Nigerian addresses)
5. If necessary and feasible organise protests to the Nigerian Embassies and
High Commissions.
6. Open channels for joint work on the case amongst international
organisations such as The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ),
ARTICLE 19, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters San
Frontiers (RSF) PEN, and so forth. The joint goal should be to free him
from detention, as well as having the charges dropped.
7. Continue to give the case the widest possible publicity.
LEGAL AND OTHER FORMS OF SUPPORT.
1. Assist by contributing and raising funds to meet costs of legal defence,
local (and international) campaigns, visits by his family to Ibadan and
their attendance of court proceedings and, for Arogundade himself in
detention. In Europe, such funds could go through the accounts of the IFJ to
his legal / campaign team and family as Arogundade, is currently a
co-ordinator of IFJ projects in West Africa. (In the UK, The NUJ and ARTICLE
19 can play this role. Same for the CPJ and the Int. League for Human Rights
and CJFE in the US / Canada, and RSF in France.
2. Seeking to establish a watching brief at the trial through local partners
in Nigeria or where possible sending lawyers to observe the trial from
abroad.
3. Organising to have International observers in Nigeria to draw attention
to the case and other abuses in Nigeria.
Send letters of protest to the following and copy to ARTICLE 19:
His Excellency
General Abdulsalami Abubakar
Chairman Provisional Ruling Council
State House
Abuja, Nigeria
Fax No: 00 234 9 523 2138
The President Elect
General Olusegun Obasanjo (Rtd)
Ota Farms, Ota
Ogun State Nigeria
Fax: 00 234 39 722 524
e-mail- alf@alpha.linkserve.com
Media: Copy to-
Punch Newspapers: editorial@punch.com.ng,
Vanguard Newpapers: Vanguard@linkserve.com.ng
Guardian Newspapers: letters@ngrguardiannews.com
The News and Tempo Magazines: c/o Editor In Chief aonanuga@aol.com
Concord Newspapers:Fax- 00 2341 496 0095
Thisday News Papers: 00 234 1 493 7779
INTRODUCTION/ BACKGROUND
Events in Nigeria over the past three weeks show that the imminent May 29
military handover date to a civilian government does not in any way signify
an end to heavy handed censorship and other human rights abuses. This state
of affairs is further emphasised by the fact that neither the president
elect, his vice president nor any leading figure in the incoming Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) government has commented on, nor initiated action on
various recent attacks on journalists, trade unionists, human rights
activists and students. Most observers including ARTICLE 19 generally accept
that the flawed electoral process is unlikely to produce a genuinely
democratic government.
A most significant case amongst recent abuses is the arrest, detention, and
now trial of the chairman of the Lagos State council of the Nigeria Union of
Journalists, Mr Lanre Arogundade. Arogundade, an Assistant Editor with, and
member of the Editorial Board of the Lagos based national newspaper “The
Vanguard”, was arrested on the morning of the 25th of April at his home by
men from the Oyo State Police Command. He has for the past six years been in
the forefront of the battle to halt attacks on the media and journalists,
first as the Chairman of the Press Freedom committee of the NUJ, and for the
past four years as chairman of the Lagos NUJ. Arogundade first came to
national prominence in 1983 when as President of the National Association of
Nigerian Students; his leadership defied a ban by the new military regime
and handed the regime their first defeat. He paid for his audacity with a
spell in detention.
ARREST AND TRIAL
After initially being reluctant to give reasons for arresting him, the
Policemen latter said they wanted to “chat” with Arogundade in connection
with the death of Ms Bolade Fasasi who was at one time Treasurer of the
Lagos NUJ. Mr Arogundade has been in detention since then, and was charged
on the 4th of May for murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Initially, the police were reluctant to state what the evidence against him
was, or to charge him for the said offence. When they finally did, they
claimed that they were acting on the basis of a petition by unknown persons.
Following criticisms and outcry by journalists, human rights organisations,
trade unions, lawyers, students and distinguished persons such as the Nobel
Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka, the petitioners were revealed to be a group of
four journalists working in Federal government establishments, including
the Federal Ministry of Information, the “Daily Times” and “New Nigerian”
newspapers.
The revelation of the identities of the petitioners led to public outrage as
the leader of this group had first been suspended, and then expelled from
the Lagos NUJ last year for undermining not only the efforts of the union to
secure the release of imprisoned journalists, but also campaigns against
censorship laws and decrees designed to gag the media. They have on numerous
occasions attempted to disrupt the activities of the NUJ, and are on record
as having physically attacked Arogundade and other NUJ officials in the
presence of witnesses. The late Fasasi had lost her re-election bid within
the union in 1997, mostly because she was strongly associated with the
petitioners. At the time, the leadership of the Lagos branch of the National
Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) jettisoned their tradition of not
openly backing candidates to give her the thumbs down in the elections. In
the last two and half years, Fasasi had ceased to work as a journalist as
her publication “The Economist” which had published only occasionally for
over a year finally folded in 1996.
ARGUMENT AGAINST THE ARREST AND TRIAL
So far, neither the petitioners nor the police have been able to provide a
shred of evidence to link Arogundade to the death of Ms Fasasi. A gang of
three or four unidentified men suspected by passers by to be robbers shot
Fasasi in broad daylight in Ibadan (a city almost two hundred miles from
Lagos where Arogundade lives and works). The police have been challenged in
the media by various sections of society to explain how one person could
have been in two places at the same time, and to provide irrefutable
evidence that Arogundade conspired with anyone to carry out the killing. It
has further been explained by the Lagos NUJ, that Arogundade was not in any
way personally involved with Fasasi, nor could he have any political motive
to harm Fasasi as she had long ceased to be an official of the union.
The fact that the police chose to charge him at a magistrates court which
has no jurisdiction to try murder cases, is seen as a sign that the police
are buying time while still detaining him. He is now held under an archaic
law condemned by lawyers known as “a holden charge” which permits the police
to incarcerate persons indefinitely. The last high profile case of persons
detained under this provision was that of the Ogoni 21, who spent three and
a half years in prison waiting to be tried for the same “murder charges” for
which Ken Saro Wiwa was framed. It is this chilling parallel with the case
of Ken Saro Wiwa and others in which criminal charges were used to undermine
support for them, that makes this the most significant of recent human
rights abuses. No one believed at the time, that Saro Wiwa could have been
convicted and hung by even a military tribunal on trumped up charges of
murdering four Ogoni Chiefs killed by unknown persons in the midst of
protests in the oil rich Niger – Delta.
Solidarity visits to Arogundade by Noble Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka,
human rights leaders, journalists, lawyers, students and trade unionists
including the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (Trade Union
Congress equivalent) show wide support for the case, (and that Nigerians
have become wise to the tactic of criminalising opponents of the military
government in order to provide a “legitimate” basis for eliminating them.)
The insistence of all the above on physically seeing him has also ensured
that he is, for now, kept in better conditions than the Nigerian police is
reputed for holding political detainees. That the General Abubakar junta has
barely three weeks to hand over power does not gladden the hearts of anyone,
as the incoming president (retired general Obasanjo) is not only seen by pro
democracy advocates as a front for the present regime, but is publicly known
to have placed a notice on the gate of his residence which read “no
journalists and dogs allowed”.
It has been suggested by some critics of the regime that one of the reasons
for the persecution of Arogundade, (apart from as punishment for his role in
defending trade unionism and press freedom) is as a pre-emptive strike
against the independent media which has promised to investigate the massive
corruption of the past 15 years and the death and disappearances of numerous
persons, including opposition figures and journalists. It is widely believed
that the new constitution, which has been fashioned and doctored by the
regime and is expected to be made public only on the day of the hand over
will contain numerous laws aimed at gagging the media. As Chairman of the
Lagos Council of the NUJ which has over fifty percent of the entire
membership, and is home to about seventy percent of journalists in the
independent media, Arogundade would have been expected to be in the
forefront of the struggle to repeal any such laws.
It is also worthy of note that this is the fourth time since General
Abubarkar came to power the police have questioned or arrested Arogundade
based on the prompting of the same group of people.
Overall, the political nature of the case is not in doubt, considering the
various editorials and programmes in the government owned print and
electronic media attacking Arogundade and the Lagos NUJ in the past four
years. The fact that his home has also been searched on allegations of gun
running is further evidence of the desperation of the government to smear
him and silence him.
