Nigeria Content Online

Lawmakers in
Nasarawa State have thrown out a motion by a member, Lagi Innocent
(Labour Party, Wamba) for members to unanimously condemn the use of
live ammunition on citizens of the state during the protest that
trailed the presidential rally of the PDP in Lafia, the state capital,
last week.

Some people were killed when security agents opened fire on demonstrators who pelted the PDP campaign team with stones.

Mr Lagi moved
his motion to counter an earlier one moved by Mohammed Onawo (Doma
North, PDP) who sought a resolution of the House to condemn the attack
on President Goodluck Jonathan when he flagged off his North-Central
zonal campaign rally in Lafia.

Majority of the
members supported Mr Onawo’s motion and the Speaker, Musa Ahmed
Mohammed said the House resolution should be sent to the state
governor, Aliyu Akwe Doma for him to deliver the message to the
presidency.

But Mr Lagi
stood up, insisting that the issue at stake was the use of bullets on
Nigerians by the police and soldiers when some supporters of the CPC
governorship candidate, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura poured onto the streets
last Wednesday to protest the arrest of Al-Makura by security agents.

Waste of life

But the labour
lawmaker, in his submission before the house, said it is condemnable
that armed security men should use life bullets on Nigerian citizens
who came out to protest the fall out of the attack on the president.

But his plea was rejected by members, who rather condemned his motion.

Mr Onawo later said yesterday on phone that he was undeterred by the response of his colleagues.

“Yes, I stood up to condemn the action of armed security men who
shot the kids on Lafia streets. If protesters threw stones and sachet
water, why would they come back with life bullets and kill? It means
they came back in retaliation. It is condemnable,” he said.

Iranian lawmakers
called for the death penalty on Tuesday for opposition leaders they
accused of fomenting unrest after a rally in which a least one person
was killed and dozens were wounded, state media said.

Clashes broke out
between security forces and protesters when thousands rallied in
sympathy for popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia on Monday. They
revived mass protests that shook Iran after a presidential vote in 2009.

“(Opposition
leaders) Mehdi Karroubi and Mirhossein Mousavi are corrupts on earth
and should be tried,” the official IRNA news agency quoted members of
parliament as saying in a statement. The statement was signed by 222
lawmakers out of 290. Being “corrupt on earth” is a charge which has
been levelled at political dissidents in the past. It is a capital
offence.

Iranian authorities
have repeatedly accused opposition leaders of being part of a Western
plot to overthrow the Islamic system. The claim has been denied by
Mousavi and Karroubi, who were prevented from attending Monday’s Tehran
demonstration. Parliament speaker Ali Larijani also accused the United
States and its allies of providing support to the opposition following
uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, both Western allies. “The main aim of
Americans was to simulate the recent events in the Middle East in Iran
to divert attention from those countries,” Larijani said, state radio
reported. However the protests seemed to be over on Tuesday and life in
the main cities was back to normal. But its leaders are wary of a
repeat of the kind of protests which shook Iran after a presidential
election in 2009. That was the biggest unrest since the 1979 Islamic
revolution. At least 20 pro-reform activists were arrested before
Monday’s marches, opposition websites said.

Iran’s top
authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called the
uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia against secular, Western-allied rulers
an “Islamic awakening,” akin to the revolution that overthrew the
U.S.-backed shah in Iran. But the opposition says they mirror their own
protests after the re-election in June 2009 of President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.

Protesters resume in Bahrain

Thousands of
Shi’ite protesters marched into the capital of Bahrain on Tuesday after
a man was killed in clashes between police and mourners at a funeral
for a demonstrator shot dead at an earlier anti-government rally.

The killing, a day after a “Day of Rage” of protests on Monday,

raised the prospect
of further clashes between Bahrain’s majority Shi’ite Muslims and the
Sunni security forces backed by the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty.
Bahrain’s main Shi’ite opposition bloc Wefaq, which accuses the ruler
of discriminating and neglecting Shi’ites, responded to the violence by
boycotting parliament.

Enraged mourners
chanted anti-government slogans inspired by protests that toppled the
rulers of Egypt and Tunisia. “The people demand the fall of the
regime!” protesters chanted.

Thousands poured
into Pearl Roundabout in Manama’s city centre, having marched from the
funeral on the outskirts of Manama. Witnesses said the funeral clashes
broke out when around 2,000 people set out from hospital to escort the
body of slain protester Ali Mushaima through the alleys of Shi’ite
villages towards his home, where his body was to be washed before
burial. Diplomats say Bahrain’s protests may gauge whether a larger
Shi’ite base can be drawn to the streets to raise pressure for reforms
that would give them a greater voice and better economic prospects.

REUTERS

The Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said that global and regional
institutions saddled with the responsibility to guard press freedom are
largely failing to fulfil their mandate as journalists worldwide
continue to face threats, imprisonment, intimidation, and killings.

According to the
annual survey of Attacks on the Press, the New York based organisation
yesterday stated that for 2010, institutions like the United Nations,
the African Union, the Organisation of American States, and the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, among others are
inconsistent in their approach to defending press freedom. The report
surveyed the media conditions in more than 100 countries and revealed
that 44 journalists were killed and 145 imprisoned in the year in
review.

“The recent
unprecedented repression and persecution of journalists in Egypt, for
example, provides an important opportunity for global and regional
institutions to speak and act forcefully in defence of a free press”
said the survey.

The group further
noted that while international laws, which these institutions are all
signatory to, guarantees the right to free expression “journalists
cannot count on a robust defence of those rights,” said CPJ executive
director Joel Simon. He explained that “while valiant special
rapporteurs at various institutions battle anti-media violence, their
effort are stymied by a halting political will to guarantee press
freedom.” “ A breakdown of assault on journalists on regional trends as
identified by CPJ revealed that a rise in investigative journalism in
Sub-Sahara Africa has led governments in the region to crack down on
journalists, particularly those reporting on the provision of basic
services and the use of public money. “From Cameroon to South Africa,
authorities are moving aggressively to unmask confidential news
sources, criminalise possession of government documents, and retaliate
against probing journalists despite their pledges of transparency and
accountability due to the pressure from donor countries.”

CPJ also noted that
a rise in censorship is prevalent throughout Latin America, due to
government’s repression, judicial interference, and intimidation from
criminal groups. Adding that in some countries, a climate of impunity
perpetuates a cycle of violence and self-censorship. The group stated
that censorship in Asia takes many forms with a mixture of violence and
official repression. Democratic nations such as Thailand, the
Philippines, and Indonesia are reported to be incapable of reversing
the impunity with which journalists are being killed. The report
declared Pakistan as the world’s “deadliest country for journalists in
2010.” Despite Europe’s development, CPJ alleged that “newer and
subtler forms of censorship are taking hold across the region to
counter the rise of electronic journalism, particularly in Russia and
the former Soviet republics.” These include the targeted use of
technological attacks and the untraceable disabling of independent
media websites.

For the Middle East
and North Africa, CPJ stated that governments are conflating critical
coverage of counterterrorism with terrorism itself, claiming national
security grounds to suppress news and views considered unfavourable.

CPJ also noted that the physical violence employed in these
countries to harass and intimidate journalists working in traditional
media is now being extended to bloggers. It called on the institutions
to stand by their word and ensure the safety of members of the fourth
estate of the realm.

A Federal High
Court sitting in Abuja has ordered the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)
and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise
Grace Bent (PDP Adamawa State) and two other senators as the senatorial
candidates for their respective senatorial zones.

The court ordered
both PDP and INEC to delist Ahmed Hassan Barata from the list of
candidates and substitute it with that of the incumbent, Mrs Bent,
pending the determination of a suit filed by the incumbent.

Mr Barata, former
member of the House of Representatives was declared winner of the PDP
Adamawa south senatorial zone’s primaries and his name was subsequently
forwarded to INEC as the winner.

Mrs Bent went to
court on February 7, asking the court to order her recognition based on
alleged gross malpractice in the primary elections.

The court, headed
by Abdu Kafarati, ruled in her favour and two other incumbent senators:
Mohammed Mana (PDP Adamawa State) and Abubakar Umar Gada (PDP Sokoto
State).

The court asked
both INEC and PDP to withdraw Bindowo Jibrilla and Ibrahim Abdullahi
Gobir as senatorial candidates in the April polls and substitute them
with Mr Mana (PDP Adamawa State) and Mr Gada (PDP Sokoto State)
respectively.

Ready for appeal

The two other
senators had sued, separately, seeking for an interlocutory injunction
restraining the PDP and INEC from enlisting names other than themselves
as candidates of the party for their respective senatorial zones.

The court granted their injunctions and ruled in the same manner
restraining both INEC and PDP from recognising any candidates other
than the applicants while striking out the first respondents. The court
also granted the appeal for accelerated hearing and fixed February 21
for hearing of originating summons from the three senators.