Deborah Akinyosoye
Clashes between protesters and authorities at a march by a Shiite group in Nigeria left a dozen people dead, according to a government intelligence report seen by AFP on Saturday.
Eleven protesters and one soldier were killed, the report said, at a pro-Palestinian demonstration held by the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) on Friday in the capital Abuja.
Amnesty International’s Nigeria branch said soldiers fired live rounds at the protesters.
The IMN has been outlawed by Nigerian authorities for advocating an Islamic revolution in the West African nation.
However at the time of its banning, in 2019, researchers characterised it as more interested in protest than political violence.
The march in Abuja and other cities in Nigeria was held in honour of Quds Day, which is marked in countries around the world with pro-Palestinian protests.
IMN said on social media that the Nigerian Army “attacked the procession and several people sustained gunshot injuries,” without giving a toll.
The intelligence report said that 19 people were injured and 295 others arrested. A soldier was also injured.
Neither the Nigerian army nor the police responded to a request for comment.
Amnesty International Nigeria described the protesters as “perfectly within their rights to hold a religious procession”, adding: “There was no evidence they posed an imminent threat to life.”
The intelligence report described the waving of flags at the protest as undermining Nigeria’s sovereignty.
In August an attack by IMN members killed two law enforcement officers, police said.
In July 2021, after more than five years in prison, IMN leader Ibrahim Zakzaky and his wife were released by a court in Kaduna, in the north of the country.
A Shiite cleric, Zakzaky has repeatedly called for an Iranian-style Islamic revolution in Nigeria, where the Muslim population is predominantly Sunni.
Inspired by the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the late 1970s, the IMN still maintains close ties with Tehran.