ERA, Nigerian Group Critices Dutch Police, Wants Ofehe Freed

ERA, Nigerian Group Critices Dutch Police, Wants Ofehe Freed

NIGERIA's foremost environmental rights advocacy group, Environmental
Rights Action (ERA) has lashed out at the Dutch Police for allegedly
violating the human rights of a Nigerian environmental campaigner, Mr.
Sunny Ofehe.

ERA therefore wants the Dutch police to immediately release Ofehe, who
is also a frontline Niger Delta activist, or arraign him before a court
of competent jurisdiction instead of continuing with their act of
seeming impunity.

ERA in an on-line statement on Monday to AkanimoReports also condemned
in strong terms, the arrest and continued detention of the environmental
campaigner and founder of Hope for Niger-Delta Campaign (HNDC), by the
Dutch police, insisting he should be freed immediately or tried in a
competent court if found to have ran foul of the law.

AkanimoReports said Ofehe was arrested by Dutch authorities from his
Rotterdam since over two weeks and has been kept in detention. The Dutch
authorities are keeping mute over the reason for his arrest while he has
also been denied access to anyone except his lawyer who has also been
barred from speaking to anyone on the matter.

ERA is however, claiming that the conditions under which the activist is
being held “ is completely unacceptable” and we now have reasons to
suspect that this is a vindictive action being instigated by oil
companies to punish Ofehe for his attempt at bringing the oil
multinationals to justice over their wanton abuse of the environment in
Nigeria”

“Even under the Dutch law an accused is assumed innocent until proven
otherwise. It is shocking that even his wife that visited his is now
being asked to report routinely to the police.

We want urge the Dutch authorities to release him immediately or send
him to trial if they have any evidence of wrongdoing against him. His
perpetual detention is a violation of his human rights and human
dignity”, said ERA Executive Director, Nnimmo Bassey.

Ofehe has recently joined other environmentalists at a recent hearing in
the Dutch parliament to provide evidence about the despoliation of the
environment by the Shell Petroleum Development Corporation of Nigeria
(SPDC) and cases of human rights abuse linked to the multinational
corporation.

Before then, he accompanied a Dutch parliamentarian on a tour of areas
devastated by operations of oil companies in the Niger Delta.

Ofehe’s arrest has been trailed by national and international
condemnation with groups and prominent individuals calling for his
immediate release.
ENDS

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