BAUCHI/KADUNA, Nigeria, Sept 10 (Reuters) - A Nigerian
Shi'ite group banned by the government said police killed 12 of
its members and injured more on Tuesday during marches in the
north of country to mark a Muslim holiday.
The government banned the group, called the Islamic Movement
of Nigeria (IMN), in July after a series of deadly clashes with
police. IMN said the police were responsible for the deaths of
at least 20 people in July but the police gave no death
toll. Police in the northern city of Kaduna, where IMN said three
were killed and 10 injured on Tuesday, disputed the account and
said it dispersed marchers "professionally". A nationwide police
spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The group was marching to mark Ashura, the day in Islamic
tradition when the Prophet Mohammed's grandson Imam Hussein died
in battle.
Police had warned IMN members not to march, saying that any
gathering or procession by group members is "ultimately illegal
and will be treated as a gathering in the advancement of
terrorism".
IMN claimed that police attacked its marchers on Tuesday
and, in Katsina, opened fire on them. It said marchers were
killed in Bauchi, Gombe and Sokoto states, all in northern
Nigeria, but that marches in the capital of Abuja and other
northern states ended without incident.
Clashes with police in the last few weeks followed calls by
the group for its leader to be released from police detention.
Their leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky, has been held since 2015 when
government forces killed around 350 people after storming an IMN
compound and a nearby mosque.
While roughly half of the nearly 200 million Nigerians are
Muslim, mostly concentrated in the north of the country,
Shi'ites are a minority.
Last week the United Nations special rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions said she had not
been presented with any evidence to suggest IMN was weaponised
and posed a threat to the country.
Nigeria bans local Shi'ite group after protests insecurity requires urgent attention, U.N. rapporteur
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