Tue 28 September 2021:
Nigerian police said Tuesday they had arrested dozens of Shiite Muslim followers of an outlawed group after clashes during a religious procession in the nation’s capital.
Abuja police said no casualties occurred when they dispersed the group, but a spokesman for the banned Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) said at least two of its members were killed.
The IMN, an outlawed pro-Iranian group, has clashed with Nigerian security forces for years and often marches in Abuja, especially over the arrest of their cleric leader Ibrahim Zakzaky.
The army killed 350 IMN Shiites, with many gunned down and burned alive according to rights groups, during a religious procession in northern Nigeria in December 2015.
Police said security forces on Tuesday intercepted IMN members who attacked them with petrol bombs and stones and they arrested 57 suspects.
“The miscreants who were found in their numbers were promptly intercepted by the security operatives and dispersed to prevent them from causing further disruption of public order,” the police statement said.
But IMN spokesman Ibrahim Musa said two followers were killed by security forces.
“We were almost rounding up the procession when the police and army came and started shooting,” he said.
“Two of our members were shot dead while several others were wounded. They also took many away.” IMN leader Zakzaky and his wife, who had been held since the 2015, were freed last month after a court acquitted them of murder charges involving the death of a soldier.
But the cleric still faces terrorism and treasonable offences charges, according to prosecutors.
Founded by Zakzaky in the late 1970s and inspired by the Iranian Revolution, the IMN has been at loggerheads with authorities for decades in a country where Shiites are a minority of the Muslim population.
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