Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the committee members.
I am the head of office of Avocats sans frontières France, working in Nigeria for close to two decades now to promote issues of human rights, particularly around the issues of torture, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention and the death penalty. My presentation today will focus on these issues, or at least two of them—torture and the death penalty, especially as perpetrated by state actors.
With regard to the work we have been doing in Nigeria, it is important to establish that human rights violations in Nigeria go way beyond the issues that I'm going to focus on, but because of time I will not dwell on that. In the speech I sent you, there is a link for human rights reports by Amnesty International and the U.S. State Department.
Speaking directly on the issue of torture, torture is commonly used by security agencies in Nigeria. It's used not just by the police but also by other security agencies, particularly for interrogation. This is known to be one of the highest links to deaths in custody. It is one of the issues that led to the #EndSARS protests in October 2020. Youth from Nigeria took to the streets to protest against police brutality and extortion, basically demanding reform and respect for human rights. From the work we do in supporting victims of torture, we know that between 2020, when those protests were held, and now, little or nothing has changed. We're aghast at the use of torture by security agencies.
This is particularly important because it cuts across various groups and targets particularly young men across different societies. Of course, we know that Nigeria has a teeming young population, but this is also leading to severe cases of extrajudicial killings and forced disappearance by the police and by the DSS, which is the secret police we have in the country. Between 2010 and today, Avocats sans frontières France has represented over 1,000 victims of torture in the country.
To move on very quickly here, I'd like to mention that the death penalty is still very commonly used. In Nigeria we have over 3,000 persons on death row. This accounts for the highest number of persons on death row in the continent. There is no official moratorium on the death penalty currently. The risk for Nigerians on death row is that the executions can occur at any time. They're just a signature away.
Ms. Fahmi talked about the case of Yahaya Sharif-Aminu. This is one of the recent instances where the death penalty has been handed down for blasphemy. However, it's not done just for cases of blasphemy; it is done for all the other crimes under sharia law, such as rape and adultery, but also under the common law for issues of armed robbery, murder and so on. It is very worrisome, because over 3,000 persons are at risk of imminent execution.
Very closely related to that is the issue of extrajudicial killings. We have a movement in the southeast of the country called the IPOB. They're separatists for the agitation of Biafra. We have a massive number cases of extrajudicial killings going on, unchecked, undocumented and unreported. The latest report issued by Amnesty International gives the figure of 122. However, it is way beyond this.
In terms of recommendations, one of the key things we're calling for is accountability for issues of torture. This can be achieved by the improvement of internal and external oversight mechanisms within, for example, the Nigeria Police Force itself, but also external oversights by civil society and the Police Service Commission.
In terms of the death penalty, we have just one recommendation. We'll be asking for an official moratorium on the death penalty.
Thank you very much.