Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on April 28th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting No. 29 of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights.

This meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. Pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022, members are attending in person in the room and remotely by Zoom.

I have a few comments before we start for witnesses and members. Please wait until I recognize you by name before taking the floor. All comments are made through the chair. For those of you here by video link, you have a little globe icon at the bottom of your screen that allows you to listen exclusively in French or English or in the original language on the floor. In accordance with the motion, we have made sure we've done the connection tests in advance.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), this subcommittee is studying the human rights situation in Nigeria.

It's my pleasure to welcome two witnesses. From Jubilee Campaign, we have Hulda Fahmi, communications associate, and from Lawyers Without Borders France, we have Angela Uzoma-Iwuchukwu, whose head office is in Nigeria.

You will each been given five minutes. It's helpful if you time yourselves, but I'll also be timing you. At the five-minute mark, I'll lean in and ask you to conclude. We'll then enter into a series of rounds where members will be able to ask you questions, and you can continue elaborating on whatever point you want to elaborate on.

Without further ado, Ms. Fahmi, please start us off. You have five minutes.

[Hulda Fahmi, Communications Associate, Jubilee Campaign]

Thank you, Chairman.

Thank you to the subcommittee for this opportunity and for your continued concern and attention regarding the dire human rights situation in Nigeria and its implications for the wider Sahel region in Africa.

Jubilee Campaign works to promote the human rights and religious liberty of ethnic and faith minorities and the release of religious prisoners of conscience. Our remarks today will focus on that, on human rights violations of the freedoms of thought, conscience, religion and belief, and on how these violations are coupled with other violations, such as of the right to life, and instances of torture.

Since the turn of the millennium, the Islamist jihadist militant group Boko Haram has been terrorizing the citizens of Nigeria, in particular Christians and peaceful non-jihadist Muslims throughout northern and central Nigeria. In December 2015, following significant military operations, the President of Nigeria claimed the initiative had technically defeated Boko Haram. However, in the seven years since this declaration, militant violence has exponentially increased, and new actors, such as the Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP, and bands of Islamist Fulani militants, have taken on roles in the violence. This was flagged in the last meeting you held in November 2020. This has included executions and inhuman and degrading treatment of civilians, including the cutting of limbs, the burning of homes and places of worship, the kidnapping and enslavement of women and girls, and coerced conversions. Leah Sharibu is one notable case.

The UNHCR has recorded, as of November 2021, at least three million internally displaced Nigerians, with the majority being displaced in the northeast of Nigeria and the country's Middle Belt, areas where Fulani Islamist violence and other criminal gang attacks are concentrated. UNICEF also reports that over one million children are afraid of returning to school due to the violence and kidnapping by these criminal gangs.

In 2020, Jubilee Campaign submitted a report entitled “This Genocide is Loading” to the International Criminal Court. I recommend you review it. We argued that the jihadist Fulani militants have increasingly engaged in crimes against humanity and genocidal attacks in the Middle Belt of Nigeria.

Recent statistics from January 2023 by Open Doors reported that 5,014 Christians were killed by Islamists and other militant groups. They account for nearly 90% of the total number of Christians killed worldwide. Only just this week, on Wednesday, there was a new attack by Fulani militants that killed 18 people and wounded others in a predominantly Christian village in the Plateau state of Nigeria.

Crimes against humanity comprise any one of the following acts “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population”: murder; extermination; deportation or forcible transfer of population; torture; rape; persecution against a group on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender or other grounds; enforced disappearance of persons; and other acts “intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.” Acts of genocide similarly include the killing of members of a group, the infliction of harm and additionally imposing “conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. The commission of any one of these acts constitutes a crime again humanity. From what we've seen in Nigeria, every one of these acts has been committed.

In our recommendations—and also as a follow-up from the last meeting—we urge that an observation mission be sent to Nigeria to collect evidence of what is going on, and specifically to work on collecting evidence of the crimes that have been committed. As the International Criminal Court does not cover the crimes perpetrated by the Fulani militant gangs and other criminal gangs, such as the enslavement and coerced conversion of women and girls, there needs to be either an additional commission of inquiry or an observation mission.

The second recommendation is to work on the removal of anti-blasphemy laws, as 12 northern Nigerian states have the death penalty. We have the case of Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, who was sentenced to death. That case is being challenged in the Supreme Court based on the validity of applying sharia laws, which include the death penalty for blasphemy.

We also have several other notable cases, those of Rhoda Jatau and Muburak Bala, who—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Ms. Fahmi. That's your five minutes. If you have a concluding remark you want to make, you can continue it afterwards during questions.

Mrs. Uzoma‑Iwuchukwu, you have five minutes.

[Angela Uzoma-Iwuchukwu, Head of Office, Nigeria, Lawyers Without Borders France]

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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to our first round of seven minutes with Mr. Van Popta, please.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here with us today and sharing their insights.

It's indeed tragic what we hear happening in Nigeria. In the west, we hear stories concerning Boko Haram kidnapping schoolgirls.

Ms. Fahmi, could you give us some insight on the status of the young girls who were kidnapped some years ago? Also, I read a story about Leah Sharibu, a Christian schoolgirl abducted along with some of her school classmates. If you're familiar with that, could you give us an update?

[Hulda Fahmi]

Thank you.

Leah Sharibu is still in captivity. She is enslaved by Boko Haram—actually now ISWAP—and has given birth to two children. Someone who recently met her confirmed that she's alive but still enslaved. That was the latest update. Actually, on May 20, she'll be turning 20. It's concerning because it seems that they know where she is, but the Nigerian government hasn't been able to release her.

Regarding the Chibok girls, she was one of them and has still not been released, and—sorry, I need to get the other numbers—out of the 117 girls, two were executed at the time. I'll get back to the numbers regarding the Chibok girls, but we had a Commission on the Status of Women side event, a parallel event, and we know that, while these are known cases, there are still ongoing cases in the Middle Belt and these cases are not as reported on.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

That's very useful information. Thank you so much for that and for the work you do.

I'll go to Angela.

To what extent can organizations like yours rely on the civil government in Nigeria to support and aid the work you're doing with victims of crime?

[Angela Uzoma-Iwuchukwu]

In terms of support for the work we're doing, first of all, we represent victims of torture, persons who have been habitually detained and those facing the death penalty. One of the core kinds of support we could receive would be in different phases.

First of all, we sometimes require political support for the kind of work we do, especially on advocacy against the death penalty, because it's a highly sensitive issue. On the other hand, we provide direct legal assistance to victims, and this is one area where we could also be supported, because here most of the clients we represent are persons without means who cannot afford the services of a lawyer. The Legal Aid Council in Nigeria is under-resourced and understaffed, so most victims rely on organizations like ours. There are some others as well that provide this sort of support in terms of legal remedy.

The kind of support we would require could be, first of all, direct support to have an enabling environment to be able to exist and do the work we do, but then also, of course, financial supports for direct legal assistance to victims. On the other hand—

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you for that.

Would it be accurate to say the victims of crime you're working to defend and aid are victims of state-sanctioned torture, or are we dealing primarily with rebel groups?

[Angela Uzoma-Iwuchukwu]

My organization focuses on representing victims of state-sanctioned torture. We work in accordance with the definition of “torture” as given in the UN convention against torture in article 1, which talks about activities by state security agencies or done with the acquiescence or knowledge of the state.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you.

I see Ms. Fahmi is back. I believe I saw her.

There you are. Thank you very much.

You talked about acts of genocide. Just clarify that for me. Is this genocide against racial groups or religious groups?

[Hulda Fahmi]

I would say it's both, because ethnic and religious are often.... There are ethnic groups within Nigeria as well, but it's mainly on religious grounds. For example, you have Fulani Christians. They are also targeted, so it's not only ethnic.

It's not only us who are saying this. Genocide Watch also issued a warning that there are genocidal acts in the region. That's why we're calling for an investigation. Civil society should not bear the brunt of investigating what's happening in the Middle Belt and northern Nigeria.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you very much.

I believe my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Mr. Van Popta.

We'll now move to our next questioner, Ms. Vandenbeld, for seven minutes.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you particularly to our witnesses for their testimony about what's happening in Nigeria.

I'm noting that the perpetrators of a lot of these human rights abuses you're outlining are in different groups. We've heard about Boko Haram, and you mentioned other jihadist militias. You also mentioned the police and things they are doing, the state in terms of blasphemy laws, the death penalty, torture in custody by police and secret police.

If we're looking at what we can do in terms of recommendations, to what extent can the state in Nigeria...? Does it have the capacity to actually prevent human rights abuses by these other actors from happening, and to what extent are they being directed by the state institutions themselves? How much willingness is there for the state to...? I know some of this is regional as well. Is there even a capacity in the Nigerian government to maintain law, order and justice in some parts of the country?

I know it's a long question, but I'd like both of you to answer, please.

We'll start with Ms. Fahmi.

[Hulda Fahmi]

I think it has to do with the priorities of the government. The UN special rapporteurs noted that the Nigerian government went into Kenya to take one of the IPOB leaders and bring him into Nigeria. At the same time, they haven't made efforts to retrieve Leah Sharibu and didn't take steps to protect Deborah at the university—to bring in the military to protect her when it was going on. There were witnesses who said the police just stayed outside and didn't intervene. That is very concerning.

As we mentioned, with the blasphemy laws and sanctioning the death penalty for blasphemy.... In a state like that, do you think there's an interest in protecting individuals being targeted for their freedom of expression? There are issues within the legal framework that give justification.

The ICC investigation was opened in 2010. It was a long time ago. We've always given Nigeria the benefit of the doubt, but there still haven't been any concrete actions. With regard to Deborah Yakubu, nobody has been arrested. These are concerning signs.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

There's a lack of political will there.

Angela, would you like to answer that question?

[Angela Uzoma-Iwuchukwu]

The Nigerian government does have the capacity. It's a question of a lack of political will, as you correctly put it.

For example, Nigeria has a responsibility to protect citizens from attacks. It does have the means. We know the government will always.... We know, for example, that the northeast is dealing with insurgency and there's banditry in the northwest. In the southeast, you have the separatists.

However, the government can show that it can be a bit more decisive in taking concrete actions against the perpetrators. It's not doing that, whether it's being perpetrated by state actors on each side.... It has not taken any action. We have legal frameworks, like, for example, the Anti-Torture Act. No one—no police officer or any other security agent—has ever been prosecuted under the Anti-Torture Act, so it's a lack of will.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

To what extent is this gendered? I heard you talk about the death penalty for blasphemy and adultery and the lack of will to protect women when women are the victims. To what extent is there systemic discrimination against women?

[Hulda Fahmi]

With regard to women, as you said, there's a death penalty for adultery, so that does make it difficult. With the abduction and forced marriage of women and girls, what makes it difficult in the northern states is that there is also the element of coerced conversion. This has meant that it's harder to retrieve the girls, because if the family is Christian, let's say, they don't have access to the judicial courts to get the daughter back, because you have to be Muslim to appeal to the Islamic courts. This is why it's very important to also have contacts with progressive Muslims, or Muslims who are against these laws. It adds a double vulnerability in getting justice. That's one aspect and it's an issue.

The laws are also targeting schools attended by girls. This is actually affecting generations of girls, and their right to work. It creates problems going forward, which is why it has to be addressed and why we have to try to investigate. As Angela said, the key thing is accountability. We haven't seen that.

[Angela Uzoma-Iwuchukwu]

On the issue of how the death penalty affects women, there was an interesting report by Cornell University in New York. I contributed to part of that report, at least to the research done on the Nigerian part. It is interesting to note the recent link, at least from my perspective, between issues regarding early forced marriage and the death penalty. We have many young girls who are forced into marriage.

That's a case my organization handled at the regional level. Maimuna Abdulmumini was alleged to have killed her husband at the age of 13. That's not the only case; it's not in isolation. You have several cases like that of people forced into marriage and abused, and when action is taken, the legal system does not take into consideration the abuse and hands down the death penalty.

You have mixed issues when a woman is an abuse survivor but also a minor on death row. Happily, we were able to get her off death row, because we won the case. Several other cases like that are ongoing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you.

That concludes this round.

Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe, you have seven minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the experts testifying here today and helping us to deliberate on what is happening in Nigeria. This is an extremely important study. The committee will have to follow up on the testimonies heard today.

In listening to your speeches and those of my colleagues, I had a question. When women are systematically victims of discrimination on a territory, we also need to think about the LGBTQ community. I was wondering if you had any reports indicating that this community is also targeted and facing terrible dangers in Nigeria.

Both witnesses can answer that question.

[Angela Uzoma-Iwuchukwu]

With regard to the LGBTQ community in Nigeria, first of all, in terms of legal framework, there is the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, which has criminalized that and particularly targets the entire community.

In terms of action, related to the discussion on the death penalty, we had four persons who were arrested in Bauchi and were tried for being gay—they were actually men—and sentenced to death. That's just one of the kinds of attacks the community has been facing in the country.

Of course, I'm sure that Fahmi wants to answer that.