Raliou Ahmed Assaleh, director of Radio Sahara, an independent radio station based in Agadez, a northern town 1000km from Niamey, and two other journalists, Moussa Inne and Ben Issoufou Mohammed were on February 16, 2008 subjected to hours of interrogation by the Agadez Gendarmerie over a story the station had aired two days earlier.

Ibrahim Manzo Diallo, managing editor of Air Info, a bi-monthly newspaper was on February 6, 2008 granted bail by an Appeal court in Zinder, Niger's second largest city , after one hundred and twenty one days in detention for allegedly conspiring with a movement to undermine national security. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)'s correspondent reported that the Court's decision followed a request filed by Diallo's counsel, Moussa Coulibaly, seeking his release, because the prosecution had failed to provide evidence, to warrant his continued stay in prison.

Ibrahim Manzo Diallo, the editor of Aïr Infos, a privately-owned weekly based in the northern city of Agadez, was to be freed lon February 6 after a criminal appeal court in Niamey ruled that he should be granted a provisional release, his lawyer told Reporters Without Borders. “We hail this sensible decision by the judicial authorities and we are delighted for Diallo, his family and colleagues,” the press freedom organisation said. “We hope this bodes well for next week, when the same court is to issue a decision on the case of another detained journalist, Moussa Kaka.”

A leading human rights advocacy group in Nigeria has declared that the reoccurring violence in Rivers State, South South of Nigeria is a culmination of years of unlawful patronage of cult groups by past governments and politicians in the state and called on President Umaru Yar’Adua to take urgent measures to arrest the situation by arresting and prosecuting the sponsors of the violence.

In a 36 -page report on the violence titled: NIGER DELTA: DECIMATED BY VIOLENCE: REPORT ON PORT HARCOUT VIOLENCE released on January, 29th in Lagos, The Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) asserted that the violence in Port Harcourt in August 2007 which claimed over a hundred lives was primarily occasioned by a bitter power struggle between two cult groups, the Outlaws led by Soboma George and the Icelanders led by Tom Ateke (both armed by past governments) over territorial control, government patronage and several lucrative extortion rackets in Port Harcourt city. Underlying the violence were several key issues including government patronage of Soboma George, a one time second in command to Ateke Tom, the struggle for power among Rivers State politicians and the widespread availability of weapons and small arms in the entire Niger Delta.

The report concludes that “So long as the federal government neglects to take drastic measures to curb the unhindered flow of arms in the Niger Delta to ensure that politicians no longer use armed groups to rig election, as security guards, and to ensure accountability for past violence in the region, the chance of renewed violence will continue to be high”.

Established in 1987, the CLO is one of Nigeria’s leading human rights organizations with over 4,000 members and zonal structures and offices in the six geo political zones.

The violence in Port Harcourt has become intractable with thousands of people killed, maimed or displaced since 2004. There are over 100 armed cult groups operating in Rivers State with some of the groups sponsored and funded by politicians including government functionaries. In the run up to the 2003 and 2007 general elections, politicians in Rivers state armed several cult groups to help rig the elections. Large sums of money were also distributed to these groups while their leaders were given government contracts. The aim was to win the elections at all cost.

According to the report, despite the enactment of a law in Rivers State by the State House of Assembly in 2003 banning cultism, the cult groups have continued to multiply and at the same time become more violent and daring due to the support of politicians. No prominent leader of the cult groups including their sponsors has been prosecuted. The Report singled out the former governor of Rivers State Chief Peter Odili as being responsible for arming cult groups in the state which he effectively used to rig elections and intimidate political opponents during his eight years reign.

CLO also reports that “an unprecedented wave of human rights violations was unleashed on the city of Port Harcourt and its environs by members of the Joint Task Force (JTF) and the police who were brought in to manage the violence”. Scores of people including women and girls have been arrested, tortured and killed extra judicially by the members of the security force in the guise of fighting armed groups. A young man who challenged police men extorting money from motorists in Agip Road, Port Harcourt city was told in clear terms to count himself lucky.” If you mess up, I will shoot you and tag you a militant and that will be the end of it’.

Elsewhere around the city, members of the JTF set up ubiquitous road blocks where citizens are regularly harassed and brutalized.

Titus Mann, CLO’s President said: “Violence in Rivers State and indeed in the whole of Niger Delta has reached an unacceptable level. This is the time to address the root cause of the problem.”

On assumption of office last year, President Yar’Adua pledged to accord priority to the Niger Delta problems. The government subsequently sent the Vice President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, a former governor of Bayelsa State, one of the component states of the region on a fence mending mission. However the dialogue initiated by the government has since broken down due to perceived government insincerity.

The report includes recommendation to the Federal and Rivers State governments. To end violence and human rights violations in Rivers state, CLO urge Governor Amechi of Rivers state to:

1. Stop further dealings with militant and cult groups in the state, except for the purpose of facilitating the ongoing dialogue or for disarmament purposes. The use of cult groups for such purposes as rigging election or to provide security duties should be discouraged at all times.
2. Investigate all human rights abuse committed by law enforcement agencies during peace keeping in the state and prosecute any officer indicted or found to have committed any abuse.
3. Take step to implement the various poverty reduction strategies outlined in the State development plan.
4. Publicly condemn the excessive use of force, torture and extra judicial killings by the security forces during the crises.
5. Create employment opportunities in Rivers State as a first step to tackle unemployment, youth restiveness and gangsterism in the state.
6. Ensure that all victims of the violence including those who lost their houses, means of livelihood or families are adequately compensated.

The report also called on the Federal Government to bring all those responsible for the violence including highly placed Nigerians who have armed and encouraged the cult groups to perpetrate violence.

Damian Ugwu, CLO head of Advocacy Unit said; “So long as the federal government neglects to take drastic measures to curb the unhindered flow of arms in the Niger Delta to ensure that politicians no longer use armed groups to rig election, as security guards, and to ensure accountability for past violence in the region, the chance of renewed violence will continue to be high”.

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The Niamey magistrate court trying two French journalists accused of “underming state security” of Niger, on January 18, 2008 granted them bail. The court ordered Thomas Dandois and Pierre Creisson, journalist and cameraman respectively of French German Television (ARTE), to pay an amount of 10 million CFA francs (about 22, 360 US$) each before they would be released.

Ben Issoufou Mohammed and Moussa Inne, journalists of Sahara FM, a privately-owned radio station, based in Agadez, a town of about 1000 km north of Niamey, capital of Niger, were on January 10, 2008 threatened by a police officer stationed at the town’s police station.

Since its independence, the state of Niger has been in latent conflict with the Tuareg population living on the Nigerien territory. This situation escalated in 1990 with a massacre of this population group in Tchin-Tabaraden and resulted in an armed conflict. After the conclusion of a treaty of peace, which was intended to make allowances for certain claims brought forward by the Tuareg organizations in 1995, this conflict calmed down. Today, it seems that the implementation of the treaty has failed.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for an investigation into the death of private radio station director Abdou Mahaman, who was killed after his vehicle ran over a landmine Tuesday night in Niger’s capital Niamey.

Fifteen-year-old Hadjo Garbo’s child-like features belie a history more tragic and life-altering than many adults four times her age will have experienced. Two years ago this petite girl, who likes to fiddle with her elaborately braided hair and once dreamed of being a housewife, was married to one of the older men in her village in the Dosso region of southwest Niger. She was just 13 years old.

Government troops in Niger have executed civilians and committed other abuses in reprisal for rebel raids in the Saharan country's uranium-mining north, international human rights organisations say. In separate reports, UK-based Amnesty International and U.S.-based Human Rights Watch denounced rights violations by the army as it confronts a rebellion by the Niger Justice Movement (MNJ).

Niger has admitted that the army killed seven Tuareg civilians at the weekend. Niger's defence minister said the civilians were caught in a firefight between the army and rebels of the Niger Movement for Justice. A statement on state radio said the incident occurred on Sunday in the region of Tiguidit, some 80km from the regional capital Agadez.

The news that 70 percent of women in parts of Niger find it normal that their husbands, fathers and brothers regularly beat, rape and humiliate them came as no surprise to human rights experts in Niger. "Women here have been indoctrinated by their families, by religious officials, by society that this is a normal phenomenon," said Lisette Quesnel, a gender-based violence advisor with Oxfam in Niger, which produced the statistic from a survey of women in the remote Zinder region of eastern Niger in 2006.

The government of Niger has launched a probe into the extent of slavery in the impoverished West African country, an official said on Friday. Unofficial estimates put the number of slaves at about 800 000. "The government wants to really know if there are people living in these conditions [of slavery] or whether these are just baseless allegations," said Garba Lompo, head of the National Commission of Basic Rights.

For thousands of years, the Tuareg nomads of Niger in West Africa have roamed the Sahara desert, surviving a harsh but relatively unchanging environment. But now profits flowing from mining uranium and other natural deposits are transforming small towns into booming cities, and the Tuaregs are beginning to demand their share of the land's mineral weath.

Daouda Yacouba of the privately-owned fortnightly Aïr Info has been released after being held for six days at police headquarters in the northern city of Agadez. He has not been charged. Yacouba was arrested on 25 October in Ingall, a town to the west of Agadez where he works as the Agadez-based Aïr Info’s correspondent. The police did not explain why he was arrested but they questioned him about his articles and his alleged links with the Tuareg rebels of the Niger People’s Movement for Justice (MNJ).

Monday morning, October 22, five men - one of whom was armed - attacked a team of MSF workers travelling in two vehicles by road from Agadez to Dabaga, where MSF has been providing medical care at the local health post since the start of October. Following this violent incident, MSF has decided to cease activities in
Dabaga and the surrounding region because the security situation is preventing the organization from adequately carrying out its work for the people living in this area. Moreover, this incident follows the October 16 theft of an MSF vehicle that was travelling on the same road to Dabaga.

Reporters Without Borders has published a list of the first 68 people to sign the petition, which will remain open until Moussa Kaka is freed. Send a message of support to this address to sign : [email][email protected] The manager of Radio Saraouniya and Niger correspondent of Radio France Internationale and Reporters Without Borders, Kaka was arrested on 20 September and charged with “complicity in a conspiracy against state authority” because he had been in frequent contact with the Tuareg rebels of the Niger People’s Movement for Justice (MNJ), including one of its leaders.

CARE Danmark is seeking a technical advisor to the programme in Niger focused on community based natural resource management and civil society strengthening. The programme aims to increase livelihood security through a range of initiatives that builds the resilience of the population to high climatic variations including; access to water and pastures, diversification of livelihood strategies and support to the decentralisation process. The programme is funded by CARE Danmark, Danida and the EU with a budget of 2 million euro per year. Deadline: 5 November 2007

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the President of the Republic of Niger to intervene to put an end to the repression on the media after the recent arrest of Ibrahim Manzo Diallo, the editor of a private newspaper accused of “working with Radio France Internationale” and the detention of journalist Moussa Kaka on charges of endangering the safety of the state for suspected links with Tuareg rebels. He faces life imprisonment.

In Niger, a combination of recurrent drought and widespread poverty leaves the most vulnerable people unable to cope when environmental shocks occur. Now, a new type of bank provides poor farmers with access to cereal grains when there are seasonal or unexpected food shortages. The banks, managed exclusively by women, are improving nutrition, keeping families together and gathering interest in the form of grain in the warehouses.