Stop using repressive laws to intimidate journalists – SERAP, NGE tell Nigerian Govt

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, and Nigeria Guild of Editors, NGE, person called connected Nigerian authorities astatine each levels of authorities to halt utilizing repressive and anti-media laws to target, intimidate and harass journalists, critics and media houses.

The groups made the request aft an interactive league connected ‘the authorities of property state successful Nigeria’ held astatine the Radisson Blu Hotel successful Ikeja.

In a associated statement, SERAP and NGE said that, “the authorities of President Bola Tinubu, the country’s 36 governors and FCT curate indispensable present genuinely uphold property freedom, guarantee entree to accusation to each Nigerians, obey tribunal judgments, and respect the regularisation of law”.

They expressed concerns astir the escalating crackdown connected the close to state of look and media state and the flagrant disregard for the regularisation of instrumentality by authorities astatine each levels of government.

The groups enactment that the suppression of the property successful caller times takes assorted forms ranging from extrajudicial to unlawful detentions, disappearances, malicious prosecutions and wrongful usage of some authorities and instrumentality enforcement.

The connection work successful part: “We would proceed to talk information to powerfulness and to clasp authorities to relationship for their law and planetary obligations including connected state of look and media freedom.

“Nigeria arsenic a state has a agelong and unpleasant past of property gagging and clampdown connected media freedom, which is grounds of extended authorities censorship of media and successful immoderate cases, the utter power of state-owned media houses.

“This presumption has not changed considerably contempt astir 25 years of unbroken antiauthoritarian regularisation successful the Fourth Republic.”