Nigeria: U.S. Filmmaker And Reporter Released After Ten Days of Questioning

press release

Reporters Without Borders is relieved today by the news that US filmmaker and reporter Andrew Berends has been released from Nigerian government custody. Berends was interrogated for ten consecutive days after he and his translator, Samuel George, as well as a Nigerian businessman, were arrested in Port Harcourt in the south of Nigeria on August 31. The translator and the businessman have been temporarily released yesterday but are still scheduled to report back to the security services tomorrow.

"We are celebrating this great news with Andrew's relatives and friends who demonstrated impressive and exceptional mobilization to achieve this outcome," said the international press freedom organization. "Their collective efforts brought about the direct and determinative use of American diplomacy to secure Andrew's release. Now that Andrew's case is settled, we expect his translator and the businessman who was arrested at the same time to be freed unconditionally as soon as possible. We hope the Nigerian authorities have learned from this episode that it is absurd to arrest reporters in the Delta region and accuse them of spying when they are simply reporting, with permission, on economic and political situations in that country."

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