Can someone not driven by sectarian hatred tell me in simple, logical terms why, 1) El-Zakzakky, leader of IMN, is neither being tried in open court nor considered worthy of bail; and 2) why Nigerian security forces are shooting his followers dead for the simple, lawful act of protesting the continued detention of their leader?
I know some mean people will say the shiites threw stones at soldiers and policemen. Stones should never be met with live bullets, period. Besides, the stone throwing was partly a response to indiscriminate teargassing of peaceful protesters and partly the expression of pent-up anger at an unruly army that killed hundreds of their members in Zaria and Kaduna.
I just watched an interview with the tin-god dictator of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, in which he justified the massacre of shiites by saying that they do not recognize the authority or constitution of the Nigerian state. How is not recognizing the Nigerian state or its constitution a crime, let alone a crime punishable by death?
I know for a fact that many, if not most, Salafis do not consider the Nigerian state or its constitution legitimate. Should this fact justify killing them? These Salafis, both quietist and jihadi, preached freely and openly across Northern Nigeria, questioning, discrediting, and disavowing the Nigerian state and its constitution. No one killed them. Many of them still hold and express this rejectionist belief regarding the Nigerian state and its constitution. As long as they do not take up arms against the state, we rightly let them be.
What about Jehovah’s Witnesses, who do not recite the national anthem or the pledge because they do not recognize the authority of nation-states and refuse to display loyalty to them? Should they be rounded up and shot?
Clearly, sectarian loyalty and hatred have become the leitmotif of official policy in this misguided, murderous clampdown on Shiites.
Source: Facebook