Shiites

Police and soldiers used tear gas to disperse the gathering, and some used live rounds, said Mallam Hussaini, who attended the ceremony. "They just opened fire on us, unprovoked, and already 10 have been killed. Their corpses are here lying on the ground," Hussaini said. — Police and soldiers used tear gas to disperse the gathering, and some used live rounds, said Mallam Hussaini, who attended the ceremony. “They just opened fire on us, unprovoked, and already 10 have been killed. Their corpses are here lying on the ground,” Hussaini said.

By IBRAHIM ABDULAZIZ/Associated Press

YOLA, Nigeria – As many as 10 people were killed on Wednesday when security forces clashed with Shiite Muslims attending a religious ceremony in northern Nigeria, one witness said. Officials said they could not confirm any deaths.

The violence occurred in Funtua, Katsina state, as hundreds of Shiites defied a ban by local authorities to gather for Ashoura, a holiday marking the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson.

“They just opened fire on us, unprovoked, and already 10 have been killed. Their corpses are here lying on the ground,” Hussaini said.

Katsina police spokesman Salisu Abubakar Agaisa said the deaths were unconfirmed but noted that security forces were authorized to break up Ashoura gatherings.

“Any person or group of persons caught violating the order will be dealt with and prosecuted accordingly,” he said.

In addition to the clashes in Katsina state, mobs were reported on Wednesday to have attacked Shiite gatherings in the northern cities of Kano and Kaduna.

Nigeria is almost equally divided between Christians and Muslims, most of them Sunni. Tensions with the Shiite population are high after the army gunned down more than 300 people in an attack last December on the headquarters of a Shiite group in Kaduna state.

A Kaduna state commission of inquiry recently said the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, a Shiite group, was responsible for provoking the attack, which it said began with a blockade that halted the convoy of Nigeria’s army chief. The group’s leader, Ibraheem Zakzaky, has been in custody since December. Last week, Kaduna officials declared the group to be unlawful, and on Sunday they ordered the arrest of its spokesman.

FILE- In this Friday April 1, 2016 file photo, Nigerian Shiite Muslims take to the street to protest and demanded the release of Shiite leader Ibraheem Zakzaky in Cikatsere, Nigeria. Nigeria’s army gunned down 348 Shiites in an attack in which one soldier was killed, according to the report of a commission of inquiry published Monday, Aug. 1, 2016 which calls for all those involved in the killings to be prosecuted. (Sunday Alamba, file/Associated Press)

By Michelle Faul | AP-

LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s army gunned down 348 Shiite Muslims in an attack last year in which one soldier was killed, according to a commission of inquiry report published Monday that calls for all involved in the killings to be prosecuted.

Members of the Iranian-inspired Islamic Movement in Nigeria are responsible for provoking the attack that began with a blockade that halted the convoy of Nigeria’s army chief, the report found. It said Shiite leader Ibraheem Zakzaky should be held responsible for refusing to call his members to order.

The report said it was unable to say with certainty how many people died in the three-day military raid in December 2015 in Zaria city on the headquarters, home and a school of Zakzaky’s movement .

It said 347 bodies were secretly buried in a mass grave, and one wounded person died in custody.

Shiite spokesman Ibrahim Musa has told The Associated Press that more than 800 people are missing, including scores in detention.

The Islamic Movement in Nigeria refused to give evidence to the commission of inquiry because of the continued detention of Zakzaky, who was shot seven times and blinded in one eye during the attack. President Muhammadu Buhari has said he will not order Zakzaky’s release, even though the law requires that charges be brought in court within 24 hours of an arrest.

Africa’s most populous nation of about 160 million people is almost equally divided between Christians and Muslims, most of them Sunni.

The report expresses concern that Nigeria’s Shiite movement may receive support from Iran and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, and it said some of the doctrines preached by Zakzaky “point to the possible intensification of intra-Muslim conflicts, which is very worrying.”

The report faults successive Nigerian governments for failing to reign in the Shiites, who frequently clash with law enforcement by illegally blocking highways to clear the way for processions often involving tens of thousands of people.

The blockade that halted the Nigerian army chief’s convoy led to the December clashes, the report found. Nigeria’s military has accused the Shiites of attempting to assassinate Gen. Tukur Buratai, a claim that human rights groups have called unbelievable

Human Rights Watch has quoted wounded children’s accounts that soldiers started shooting at school children leaving a mosque an hour before Buratai’s convoy approached the roadblock, indicating the raid had been planned.

The commission of inquiry’s report also said there was no evidence that the Shiites were hiding caches of weapons, as the military had indicated.

Nigeria’s military is often accused of massive human rights violations, including the deaths of thousands of people detained in connection with Boko Haram’s Islamic uprising in the northeast.

The rubble of a Shiite mosque demolished in Zaria, Kaduna state, Nigeria, is pictured on February 2. An inquiry into clashes between Shiites and the Nigerian Army in Zaria has heard that 347 Shiites were buried in a single mass grave. Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters

Hundreds of Nigerian Shiites were buried in a single mass grave following clashes with the military, an inquiry heard on Monday, as lawyers for the detained Shiite leader demand his release.

Members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN)— led by Iranian-backed Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky —clashed with the Nigerian army in the northern city of Zaria, Kaduna state, between December 12-14, 2015. A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) published in December estimated that at least 300 IMN members had been killed in the clashes, which the army claimed started after members of the sect tried to assassinate the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai. The IMN maintains that the clashes were unprovoked.

The Kaduna State Government is holding a judicial inquiry into the events. The Secretary to the State Government, Balarabe Lawal, told the inquiry on Monday that at least 347 Shiites were killed and buried in mass graves in the aftermath of the clashes. Lawal said that 191 corpses were transferred from the Nigerian Army Depot in Zaria to a burial site in the Mando area of Kaduna, Nigeria’s Premium Times reported. A further 156 corpses were taken from the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Zaria to the same burial site. Lawal also said that the corpses were of youth members belonging to the IMN and that they were committed into a single grave.

Another witness to the inquiry, Namadi Musa—the director-general of Kaduna’s state interfaith agency—said that the burial took six hours to complete and was undertaken with authorization from a magistrates’ court in Kaduna.

The IMN’s spokesperson Ibrahim Musa told Newsweek that the burial took place “in the middle of the night” and was not done according to Islamic burial rites. “None of their families have seen them, none was contacted and told they are going to be buried,” says Musa, who adds that more than 700 members of the movement remain missing after the clashes.

Zakzaky remains in detention and held in the custody of Nigeria’s intelligence agency, the State Security Service (DSS). Barrister Maxwell Kyon, one of the lawyers representing Zakzaky, told Newsweek that his legal team had only been allowed access to the sheikh on one occasion during his four-month detention. Kyon says that, when he met with Zakzaky on April 1, the IMN leader told him that he had lost some movement in his left arm and walked with a limp after suffering gunshot wounds during the clashes. Kyon adds that Zakzaky was blinded in his left eye and is at risk of losing sight in his right eye.

Zakzaky’s legal team are filing a motion with the Federal High Court in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Tuesday, to demand the unconditional release of Zakzaky, says Kyon, on the grounds that he has not been charged and that his ongoing detention violates the fundamental rights afforded by Nigeria’s constitution.

Nigeria: 347 shiites buried in mass grave, inquiry told

Like Us On Facebook