Nigerian police should immediately release journalist Samuel Ogundipe, drop all charges against him, and cease efforts to pressure him to reveal any journalistic sources, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Mr Ogundipe, a reporter with the privately owned Premium Times online newspaper, was arraigned yesterday (Wednesday) in a magistrate's court in the Kubwa suburb of Abuja, Nigeria's capital, after police detained him overnight and repeatedly tried to force him to reveal the source for an article about the inspector general of police, according to Musikilu Mojeed, editor-in-chief of Premium Times, and Esther Bassey, one of the journalist's lawyers, who said the arraignment was illegal. Police from Nigeria's special armed robbery squad, commonly known as SARS, on August 13 also briefly detained Azeezat Adedigba, an education reporter from Premium Times, and used her phone to summon and arrest Mr Ogundipe, Mr Mojeed and Ms Adedigba told CPJ.
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