News / Nigeria

Nigerians hold rally to express support for Ibrahim Zakzaky

Thursday, 21 March 2019 2:30 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 21 March 2019 3:13 AM ]

Members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria take part in a demonstration against the detention of their leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky in Abuja on March 20, 2019.

Dozens of Nigerians held a rally in the capital Abuja on Wednesday to express support for prominent Shia cleric Shiekh Ibrahim Zakzaky.

The slogan-chanting protesters called on authorities to immediately release Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife.

Zakzaky, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, has been held in detention since December 2015 and was charged just in April 2018 with murder, culpable homicide, unlawful assembly, disruption of public peace and other accusations. He has pleaded not guilty.

In 2016, Nigeria’s federal high court ordered his unconditional release from jail following a trial, but the government has so far refused to set him free.

The top cleric, who is in his mid-sixties, lost his left eyesight in a raid which was carried out by the Nigerian army on his residence in the northern town of Zaria in December 2015.

During the raid, Zakzaky’s wife sustained serious wounds too and more than 300 of his followers and three of his sons were killed. Zakzaky, his wife, and a large number of the cleric’s followers have since been in custody.

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Nigeria