A Coalition of Civil Society Organization under the Centrum Initiative for Development and Fundamental Rights Advocacy has said that the perpetrators of Zaria massacre which left hundreds of Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) dead risk life imprisonment or death sentence.
The group said this may become possible following the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Approved and proposed for signature and ratification or accession by General Assembly resolution 260 A (III) of 9 December 1948 – Entry into force: 12 January 1951, in accordance with article XIII.
The group said the Articles I – IV states that “the Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.*
“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such, killing members of the group.
“Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
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The group made this known in a statement signed by representatives of the various CSOs under the Coalition including Dr Hasan Bala, Geoffrey Nwokolo, Prince Adelaje Adeoye, Comrade Ecoja Godwin, DR. YB. Abubakar, Comrade Ahmad Shuaib, Comrade Mabel Christiana Abba
The group said the following acts shall be punishable, genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, complicity in genocide.
“Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals”.
The group, however, said “the ill-treatment of members of this religious minority group and their leader Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife Zeenat that are kept in custody incommunicado with severe bullet wounds all over their bodies in continuous disregard and contempt of an Abuja High Court order to release them and pay them the sum of 50 million Naira as compensation as fully documented.
“Between 12 – 14th December 2015, the Nigerian Army burnt alive, maimed, raped, demolished homes and buried hundreds of male and female of the Nigerian Shia Muslims in a mass grave in Kaduna state (Mando).
“These crimes committed against the Shia minority can never be forgotten in our strive for the desired Human Rights to be shaped within the Nigerian democratic system”.
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