Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Nigerian authorities must hold Islamic militants accountable for “spiraling” violence as they try to pit the country’s Muslims and Christians against each other, the United Nations said today.

“One day it is a church congregation that is being targeted, the next day it is a mosque, and the day after that it is some secular target,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said today in a statement on the agency’s website. “I urge all Nigeria’s leaders to avoid falling into the trap of calling for, or sanctioning, retaliation or making other provocative statements.”

More than 85 people have died in bomb and gun attacks since Christmas Day on churches in Abuja, the capital, and in the north that the authorities blame on the Boko Haram group, which draws inspiration from Afghanistan’s Taliban movement. Boko Haram, which means “Western education is a sin,” says it’s fighting to establish sharia law across the entire country.

Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer and sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest economy, is roughly split between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south. Boko Haram on Jan. 2 gave Christians three days to leave the north.

Boko Haram Video

Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the group, in a 15 minute video posted on Youtube yesterday, claimed responsibility for recent attacks targeting Christians, accusing Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan of killing Muslims and vowed further attacks. The group will continue to attack Christians in the north of the country if they didn’t heed the ultimatum to leave, he said.

“The fact that people are already leaving some areas where they are in a minority, out of fear of attacks by the majority, shows just how dangerous this is becoming for the country as a whole,” Pillay said today.

Christians are not leaving the north, although some are relocating from areas that have had more violent attacks to other safer areas within the north, Saidu Dogo, secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria in 19 northern states, said today by phone from Kaduna, the capital of the northern Kaduna state.

“Nobody is leaving the north,” Dogo said. “How do you expect Christians who are born and living in the north to just leave?”

Nigerian Christians will work out means of defending themselves, Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, told reporters in Abuja on Jan. 7.

Jonathan declared a state of emergency in parts of four states in Nigeria’s northeast region on Dec. 31 and set up a special counter-terrorism unit within the armed forces after at least 43 people died and 73 were wounded in a Christmas Day bombing of a church near Abuja. Islamic militants pose a worse threat to the country than the 1967-1970 civil war, Jonathan said on Jan. 8.

Authorities must respect human rights and avoid excessive use of force “to avoid making a bad situation even worse,” Pillay said.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-12/un-says-boko-haram-must-be-held-accountable-for-violence.html

Awareness is taken place. More to come. Little drop of water make a mighty ocean.

Pillay sees signs of atrocities in Nigeria

GENEVA, Switzerland, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Members of the Islamic sect Boko Haram could be responsible for crimes against humanity in Nigeria, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights said.

Terrorist attacks attributed to Boko Haram have escalated in Nigeria since the group took responsibility for an attack last year on U.N. offices in Abuja. The group has issued threats to the Christian population in Nigeria since a deadly attack on the religious community Christmas Day.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, in a statement Thursday, said Boko Haram and other groups like it could be found guilty of crimes against humanity.

"Deliberate acts leading to population 'cleansing' on grounds of religion or ethnicity would also amount to a crime against humanity," she added.

Pillay said she recognized some religious and political leaders in Nigeria have issued calls to end the violence but emphasized the need for a united voice to prevent the security situation "from spiraling out of control."

"I appreciate what an extremely difficult task the government is facing," she said. "However, the police and other security forces should act with a sense of responsibility and respect for the rule of law in order to avoid making a bad situation even worse."

The Boko Haram threat is compounded by nationwide strikes in protest of the end of a fuel subsidy in place for nearly 40 years.


Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2012/01/12/Pillay-sees-signs-of-atrocities-in-Nigeria/UPI-57861326382498/#ixzz1jGO0eMMa