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Islamic Movement Procession |
Yesterday
a Magistrate Court that sat in Kaduna Central Prison read out some charges
against the 191 brothers of the Islamic Movement that were languishing in jail
for the past two months. Among the charges were illegal assembly, causing
bodily harm, public disturbances and possession of firearms. The Islamic
Movement objects to the way and manner the court had its first sitting in
prison. The court ought to have offered the general public its reason for the
unusual sitting in prison, but it did not. For the court to hide under the
guise of ‘security reasons’ for it’s sitting in prison is a travesty of
justice, since justice as they say, should not only be done, but seen to be
done.
We
object to the trial becoming a secret trial because under the law, trial of the
charges against the brothers of the Islamic Movement should be held in an open
court where the public can witness it. What happened yesterday in Kaduna Prison
is akin to a secret trial where the public was denied entry to the court
proceedings. But more worrisome to us is the charge of possession of firearms
labeled against the brothers. The prosecutor even said a large cache of arms
was recovered from some of the brothers that had to be taken to Lagos for
expert analysis. We believe this is a trumped-up charge brought up against the
IMN.
It
is pertinent to note that had the brothers been in possession of any weapon,
the story of the massacre carried out by the Army in Zaria would have been an
entirely different thing. There would have been large casualties on the side of
the attacking army as well but there isn't. However the world is a witness to
the fact that not even a single soldier died when the Army mercilessly
descended upon unarmed civilians in Husainiyya Islamic Centre and the residence
of Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky. The fact that weapons are just being brought up for
the first time in this matter suggests that the authorities are trying by all
means to frame up charges and produce manufactured evidences against the
Islamic movement. Why did it take the army this long to make it public?
Moreover,
earlier, and on three occasions, the General Officer Commanding 1 Mechanized
Division of the Nigerian Army, Major General Adeniyi Oyebade, who also proudly
announced that he led the operation, declared that brothers of the Islamic
Movement had no weapons but catapults, machetes and sticks. He made this
declaration again in another press conference where the Army made public their
success in the fight against crimes in 2015. So from whom were the weapons
taken to Lagos by the police confiscated? Surely its not from the brothers of
the Islamic Movement.
However
we believe the public will not be deceive with this concocted lie, because
brothers and sisters of the Islamic Movement have never and will never carry or
possess any weapon. For the past almost forty years of the Movement’s history,
we have never attacked anybody. We have always been at the receiving end,
attacked by our detractors who are afraid of the growing numbers of followers
of the Islamic Movement.
Also
our leader Sheikh Zakzaky has said it many times that we only talk to the mind,
but not kill the owner of the mind. We therefore reiterate our demand for their
unconditional release, because they were just lucky to escape with their lives
from the gruesome murder of the innocent carried out by the army in Zaria.
Signed:
Ibrahim
Musa
President
Media
Forum of the Islamic Movement
0805 078 6093 14/02/16
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