Nigerian police use torture to extract confessions, says Amnesty
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Version 0 of 1. Torture has become so institutionalised in the Nigerian police force that many stations have an informal torture officer, says Amnesty International. The human rights group says the police and military routinely torture women, men and children using a range of methods including beatings, shootings, rape and electric shock to extract a confession. Amnesty published its latest report on the practice on Thursday, based on hundreds of testimonies gathered over 10 years. Many victims said they had also been subjected to nail and tooth extractions as well as sexual violence. Most of those detained were denied access to family or lawyers, the UK-based rights group said. Netsanet Belay, Amnesty's Africa director, said the indiscriminate roundups of hundreds of suspects, who were then subjected to torture amid Nigeria's search for Islamic extremists, resembled a "medieval witch hunt". The Nigerian government and military have responded to previous Amnesty reports of rights abuses with promises to investigate. |