Court remands six #EndSARS protesters in custody

Abuja Magistrate Court has remanded six detained protesters in custody on ‘trumped up charges,’ according to their lawyer.

A small group of protesters were attacked by security forces at the National Assembly as they were rounding off their protest demanding widespread governmental reforms. Six protesters were arrested, including five males and one female.

Human rights lawyer Tope Akinyode, who is defending the accused, said that the protesters were being held on “allegations of unlawful assembly and wanting to distort the societal peace.”

“Of course, those are clearly trumped up charges because the protesters protested in accordance with the law,” he said.

The magistrate in charge of their case decided to strike out the lawyer’s oral application for bail, instead demanding that they present a written request.

Mr Akinyode said that on account of the time it would take to draw up a written bail request, it could not be presented to the court until next week Monday. Therefore, the six protesters will be remanded in custody over the weekend.

The lawyer believes that this was done purposefully to harass and intimidate his clients.

When this reporter questioned Mr Akinyode on the veracity of some social media claims that the female detainee, Oluwatosin Adeiji – a citizen reporter – had been ‘tortured’ by security forces, he confirmed.

“Absolutely … when [security forces] asked her to make a statement, she declined to do that, saying that she would only do it in the presence of her lawyer. In response to that [the security forces] beat her up and gave her internal injuries,” he said