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Nigerian Court Outlaws Shiite Movement as Terrorists: Punch

Nigerian Court Outlaws Shiite Movement as Terrorists, Punch Says

(Bloomberg) -- Nigeria cracked down on a Shiite Muslim group amid deadly clashes with the police, winning a court order that bans it from gathering, the Punch newspaper reported, citing a federal high court judge.

The group’s activities may be considered an act of “terrorism and illegality,” Judge Nkeonye Maha said, according to the Lagos-based newspaper. Several people were killed in the recent confrontations, including a police officer, a journalist and demonstrators.

The police and the Shiite group, the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, have clashed regularly amid demands that the government release IMN’s leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, who has been in detention since 2015. A court sitting in Nigeria’s northern Kauduna region is set to decide El-Zakzaky’s bail application on Monday.

“Depending on the outcome of the court decision, you might or not see us on the street,” the group’s spokesman Ibrahim Musa said by phone on Sunday.

The court hasn’t forwarded a written order and the Shiites are only aware of it from media reports, Musa said. He condemned the act as “immoral” and “illegal,” saying protests will continue until the leader is released.

Nigerian Court Outlaws Shiite Movement as Terrorists: Punch

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with almost 200 million people, is almost evenly split between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south. The north is overwhelmingly Sunni, but there are an estimated 3 million Shiites.

Clashes in the capital of Abuja in October claimed the lives of about 50 of the group’s members.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tope Alake in Lagos at talake@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Abigail Moses, Hilton Shone

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