Police beat journalist to coma with horsewhips
By Our Correspondent
Published: Wednesday, 12 Nov 2008

Five armed policemen on Monday unleashed terror on some residents of D-Line in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, including the state correspondent of The Punch, Mr. Ibanga Isine, who was passing through the area.


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The errant policemen, with a pick-up van marked SOS 044; it was learnt, mounted a roadblock in front of the NITEL Building, off Garrison junction, from 9pm and frisked passers-by.

It was the first time the team was spotted in the area, a situation that raised some questions about the propriety of their operation.

Narrating his ordeal, Isine said he had gone to a restaurant on Abeokuta Street, a few metres to where the policemen mounted the roadblock.

As soon as he approached the checkpoint, one of the armed policemen was said to have ordered him to stop, while also asking a barrage of questions.

“Who are you? Where are you coming from? What are you doing now? You don’t want to talk?” one of the policemen, a constable reportedly asked.

While he tried to answer his questions, Isine said the policeman corked an AK 47 rifle with his left hand and started whipping him all over his body.

“You are a criminal. I will teach you a lesson today,” he said as he lashed at the helpless journalist.

Isine said, “I told them that I am a journalist but they would not hear any of that. They said what journalist? You are stupid. What are you doing on the road if you are a journalist?

“I told them that I wanted to call the Police Commissioner or the Police Public Relations Officer to confirm that I was not a criminal and they threatened to smash my phone.

“This even angered them the more and the constable, who had the horsewhip, increased his swings on my back.”

After he was tired of flogging him, Isine said a sergeant told him that he was lucky nothing incriminating was found on him and threatened that he would have been sent to where he rightly belonged.

The spokesman of the Joint Task Force, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa; the Rivers State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Ogbonna Nwuke; and the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mrs. Rita Inoma-Abbey, visited the scene of the assault.

Musa, on behalf of security agencies in the state, offered an apology to journalists at the headquarters of the 2nd Brigade of the Nigerian Army.

He described the incident as condemnable.

He promised that the police authorities would investigate the case with a view to bringing the perpetrators to book.

Isine is currently receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital in Port Harcourt.

Reacting to the incident, the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law has expressed its concern with the gross abuses of human rights and fundamental freedoms of citizens in Rivers State.




http://www.punchontheweb.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art200811124164057

send to i report, this aint cnn

I'm beginning to see reason with the woman who said horsewhipping, stripping and dehumanizing of nigerians in nigeria by uniformed men is no big deal. Its actually a nigerian thing.

However, i do sympathize with the affected journalist and hope incidents like this will continue to be exposed and at the same time have justice served.