Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, has warned members of the National Assembly against any move to amend the criminal code and make provision for sanctions against protests.
HURIWA was reacting to a Bill sponsored by Honourable Chinedu Martins of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Imo State.
The Bill is titled “an Act to amend the Criminal Code Act, Cap 38, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 to further Preserve the Sanctity of Human Life and Property and to Provide Specifically for Mob Action, Prescribe Punishment and Other Matters.”
HURIWA, through its national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, argued that “the move to jail protesters as contemplated by the proposed legislation is undemocratic, unconstitutional and retrogressive.”
The rights group advised lawmakers to “be wary of passing unconstitutional legislation that would install a dictator as the President in which case they too would be like preys who are riding on the back of the tiger that will devour them soon.
“The attempt to put Nigerians in tyrannical chains through this viciously evil legislation aimed at crippling the civil rights of protesters must never be allowed to see the light of the day.
“Nigerians must defend the democracy that we fought so hard to achieve and stop the anti-democratic forces in the National Assembly from destroying democracy and inhibit the citizens’ exercise of their universally recognised unalienable Human Rights to civil protests.”
