(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ sources in Lagos and Kaduna confirmed that Christine Anyanwu, publisher and editor-in-chief of the now-defunct “The Sunday Magazine”, was released from prison in Kaduna during the evening of 16 June 1998. **Updates IFEX alerts dated 16 June 1998, 18 August and 23 June 1997; 27 October, 1 August, 22 May 1995; and […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ sources in Lagos and Kaduna confirmed that Christine
Anyanwu,
publisher and editor-in-chief of the now-defunct “The Sunday Magazine”, was
released from prison in Kaduna during the evening of 16 June 1998.
**Updates IFEX alerts dated 16 June 1998, 18 August and 23 June 1997; 27
October, 1 August, 22 May 1995; and others**
In an interview published in the 17 June 1998 edition of the independent
Lagos-based newspaper “PM News”, titled “I Saw Hell in Abacha’s Prison”,
Anyanwu made the following remarks immediately after exiting the prison
where she had been held since late 1997:
“The whole experience was filled with frustration and all sorts of insults.
Yes, Prof. Soyinka wrote a book about Kaduna Prison, the man died. It is
killing for one to go through all these terrible experiences, and everyday
you ask yourself, `Am I dreaming? Can this be real? What am I doing
here?’ Experiences in the prison where human beings die almost on a daily
basis due to ill treatment are confirmed to me. Nigerian prisons are a hell
where one should thank her god if one eventually comes out alive.”
Anyanwu is presently suffering from problems with her eyesight due to
medical neglect during her three-year incarceration.
Background Information
In July 1995, a special military tribunal secretly tried Anyanwu and
sentenced her to life imprisonment for treason. On 1 October 1995, her life
sentence was commuted to fifteen years in prison by the Provisional Ruling
Council. Anyanwu was transferred to a prison in Bama, north-eastern Nigeria,
notorious for its poor conditions. At the end of 1997, she was being held at
Kadu Prison in Kaduna State and was in desperate need of medical attention
for her deteriorating eyesight. George Mbah of “Tell”, Ben Charles Obi of
“Weekend Classique” and Kunle Ajibade of “TheNews”, who were arrested and
sentenced with Anyanwu in March and May 1995, remain imprisoned. There are
currently seventeen journalists imprisoned journalists in Nigeria (see IFEX
alerts).
