Senior Lawyer and Human Right Activist, Femi Falana, has said a total of 1,403 out of 2,111 persons arrested during the hunger protests held between August 1 to August 10, are still being held in custody across the country.
Falana who made this known in a statement on Thursday, said they are in custody due to lack of legal representation.
This comes at the back of a promise made by the Nigerian Bar Association, to provide representation for protesters arrested during the protest.
In the statement, titled ‘HALT THE CLAMPDOWN ON PROTESTERS’, Falana also revealed that those in detention includes Seven Polish students, and their lecturer, who were taking part in an exchange programme in Bayero University, Kano, arrested for taking photographs during the protest.
He said “They may be charged with espionage to give the impression that the protests were instigated by foreign interest groups.”
“Whenever the suspects are going to be arraigned, they must be given adequate notice to be able to contact the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, and their family members to make arrangements for their defence,” he said.
Giving a breakdown of the protesters in custody, Falana revealed that Kano State has the highest number of persons in custody in all 15 states, with a total of 873 persons in detention, while Jigawa comes second, with 403 persons and 120 persons respectively.
Others are Gombe 111, Sokoto 110, Borno 99, Yobe 90, Bauchi 60, Plateau 51, Kaduna 50, FCT 50, Nasarawa 40, Niger, 25, Zamfara 19 and Cross River 10.
The Senior Lawyer said “We have also confirmed that individual lawyers who had applied for the bail of the detained suspects in police stations were not informed that they were going to be arraigned in the courts.
“We submit that the decision of the authorities to deny the suspects legal representation constitutes a violent breach of their fundamental right to fair hearing guaranteed by section 36 of the Constitution and article 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act.
“This is highly discriminatory and illegal on the ground that politically exposed persons who are arrested for looting the treasury to the tune of several billions of Naira are usually informed in advance of the dates and of their arraignment in the courts.
“Such highly placed suspected looters are always granted bail in liberal terms and even authorised by trial judges to travel abroad for medical treatment.
“The offence allegedly committed by the 783 suspects arrested in Kano is that they displayed the Russian flag during the protest.
“A tailor who was sowing the flag was also arrested by the police. It may be difficult to press charges against the suspects in a country where the flags of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and other European countries are hoisted by the majority of hotels in Nigeria while Churches hoist the flag of Israel based on the erroneous belief that it is a Christian country,” he concluded.