{"id":63905,"date":"2025-04-07T12:37:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T12:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=63905"},"modified":"2025-04-07T12:37:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T12:37:38","slug":"amnesty-to-fg-respect-rights-as-protest-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/04\/07\/amnesty-to-fg-respect-rights-as-protest-looms\/","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty to FG: Respect Rights as Protest Looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Nigeria braces for nationwide protests on Monday, April 7, Amnesty International has urged the Federal Government to uphold citizens’ rights to peaceful assembly and free expression.<\/p>\n

In a strongly worded statement on Sunday, the Director of Amnesty International Nigeria, Isa Sanusi, called on security forces to respect constitutional and international commitments to human rights.<\/p>\n

He warned against any form of intimidation or repression that could undermine the protesters.<\/p>\n

“The Nigerian authorities must ensure that security agencies respect and facilitate the right to peaceful protest, as guaranteed by both the nation’s constitution and global human rights treaties,” Sanusi declared.<\/p>\n

He also cautioned government officials against using inflammatory language that could label peaceful demonstrators as threats.<\/p>\n

The protests, driven by growing concerns over shrinking civic space and allegations of government misuse of the Cybercrimes Act to stifle dissent, have drawn the backing of several civil society groups.<\/p>\n

Michael Christian, Social Media and Communications Officer at Amnesty International Nigeria, echoed these concerns, warning authorities not to exploit the protests as an excuse to clamp down on freedoms.<\/p>\n

“The government must not turn the upcoming protests into a justification for human rights violations,” Christian stated. “Actions that suppress the right to peaceful assembly are unlawful and reflect a worrying intolerance for opposing views.”<\/p>\n

Amnesty International stressed that the protests offer the government a crucial chance to demonstrate its commitment to democracy and human rights.<\/p>\n

“Authorities must honour both constitutional and international obligations by allowing citizens to freely express themselves,” the rights group insisted.<\/p>\n

Nigeria’s constitution, alongside international agreements such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, protects the rights to free speech, peaceful assembly, and association.<\/p>\n

Organisers of Monday’s protests maintain that they will remain peaceful, even as they voice growing frustration over alleged crackdowns on freedoms fundamental to Nigeria’s democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adenike Lawal As Nigeria braces for nationwide protests on Monday, April 7, Amnesty International has urged the Federal Government to uphold citizens’ rights to peaceful assembly and free expression. In a strongly worded statement on Sunday, the Director of Amnesty International Nigeria, Isa Sanusi, called on security forces to respect constitutional and international commitments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":63906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-63905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63907,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63905\/revisions\/63907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}