Official Note of Protest about police brutality in Nigeria

The Minister of Information
The President’s Special Advisor on Media and Publicity
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

Official Note of Protest - Bonn, 25 June 2017

Sirs,

On Friday, 23 June 2017, our correspondent Ibraheema Yakubu was assigned to report from a rally in Kaduna for Deutsche Welle. While he was covering the event, he identified himself to police authorities on location as a journalist. Subsequently, Mr. Yakubu was taken into police custody and beaten by officers of the police force. His technical equipment was deliberately damaged by police officers. 

With this, we are filing an official protest with your administration. This treatment of an accredited journalist by Nigerian authorities is completely unacceptable. We expect the freedom of the press to be respected in your country.

DW has a long-standing and valuable relationship with the Federal Republic of Nigeria, its media and its people. This makes this incident even more grave.

We have brought this unspeakable incident to the attention of the German Foreign Ministry, the NUJ and the CPJ. You have undoubtedly seen the various newspaper articles recounting this blatant case of police brutality.

We are asking you to take the necessary steps to hold the police officers involved accountable. Also, we demand that the release on bail of our correspondent be rescinded immediately and that all charges against him shall be dropped. An official statement and apology by police authorities is definitely called for. And we expect the cost to replace his destroyed professional equipment to be covered by Nigerian authorities.

Yours sincerely,

Christoph Jumpelt 
Head of Corporate Communications
and Spokesperson