Urgent Action Needed For Ogoni Prisoners

20 Ogoni men are still in prison in Nigeria awaiting “trial” - framed for murder on the same charges that Ken Saro-Wiwa faced last year. The Nigerian government refuses to grant them bail, much less bring them to trial. The men are kept in severely overcrowded cells with torture, denial of medical care, starvation, and poor sanitary conditions all listed as complaints. This has been described as a deliberate strategy, “Abacha knows that executing them or even trying them will draw unwanted attention. Instead, he seems prepared to let them die in jail untried” The New York Times, August 6, 1997.

Testimony by the 20 implicates Shell in their arrest and subsequent torture. “Shell Police replied that nothing can make us free from their hand, and that even if they forgave others, they cannot forgive the indigenes of Bomu and Dere communities because they are the causes of the hindrances to their operations in Ogoniland” - written by two of the Ogoni 20, September 21, 1996. Shell’s security force, known locally as the “Shell Police” are accused of numerous incidents of repression of peaceful protest and harassment of activists. Contact DELTA on 0116 255 3223 lynx@gn.apc.org