Lawyer highlights plight of detained separatists

A human-rights lawyer representing English-speaking Cameroonian separatists said they had been arrested by Nigeria's secret service and were being held ‘illegally’. Femi Falana said Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the president of the anglophone separatist movement in Cameroon, and nine others were detained at a hotel in Abuja last weekend. ‘Armed operatives of the State Security Service (Nigeria's secret service) invaded the venue, abducted our clients and took them away to an undisclosed place,’ he said. A report on The Citizen site notes that he called for his clients to be either released from ‘illegal custody’ or charged within 48 hours, threatening court action ‘to secure the enforcement of their fundamental rights to personal liberty’.