{"id":23270,"date":"2019-10-24T11:22:02","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T11:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=23270"},"modified":"2019-10-24T11:22:02","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T11:22:02","slug":"terrorism-charges-being-used-to-silence-critics-journalists-joder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=23270","title":{"rendered":"Terrorism Charges Being Used to Silence Critics, Journalists &#8211; JODER"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=19231&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<div dir=\"auto\">Terrosism charges is now being used by Nigerian political office holders to\u00a0 silence and intimidate critics of the governmemt, Journalists for Democratic Rights, (JODER) said in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">JODER berated terrorism charges against a Calabar based lawyer Joseph Odok who had Terrorism slammed in him in Tuesday at the Federal High Court, Calabar, at the instance of the Governor of Cross Rivers State Prof Ben Ayade<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">The leading pro-media rights group cited the trial of Sahara Reporters Publisher, Mr Omoyele Sowore and CrossRivers Watch Publisher Jalingo Agba as clear instances where Terrorism charges are being abused by state and Federal authorities to stifle public dissent against the various policies of the government.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">&#8220;The real terrorists are having a field day while peoples power expressed through public media is being demonized as terrorism by Nigerian authorities&#8221; JODER stated in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Mr Adewale Adeoye and the Programme Officer, Mr Taiwo Adeleye.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">The group said &#8220;The ruling class is now employing the Anti Terrorism Act as a weapon to fight criticisms.\u00a0 The Governments have finally decided to stop every form of criticism considered bitter to the authorities.\u00a0 This is plot behind the charges against Sahara Reporters and CrossRivers Watch Publishers.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">JODER urged journalists and the Nigerian public\u00a0 to follow the trials with keen interests warning that the\u00a0 attacks may be extended to other media institutions and radical individuals in the nearest future.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">JODER said the ruling class has for long been ploting to stop Sahara Reporters.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">It referred to the instance when former Senate President Dr Bukola Saraki slammed a libel suit against Mr Sowore in Ilorin.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">The judge did not hear Sowore but awarded N4 billion damages against him.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Sowore&#8217;s lawyers got the Court of Appeal to set aside the illegal judgment and award.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Since libel suits have not stopped Saharareporters Sowore was arrested for terrorism.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\u00a0The DSS applied to detain him for 45 days under the Terrorism Act.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Justice Taiwo issued the order.\u00a0 \u00a0Sowore&#8217;s lawyers challenged the illegal order to detain Sowore for terrorism. leading to Terrorism charge being\u00a0 dropped for treasonable felony.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">JODER stated &#8220;Based on submissions of Sowore&#8217;s lawyers Justice Taiwo granted Sowore bail. DSS refused to release him and threatened to report Justice Taiwo to National Judicial Council. This was enough to scare Justice Ifeoma Ojukwu<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">But since Sowore&#8217;s led by arudite activist, Mr Femi Falana (SAN)\u00a0 cited precedence\u00a0 in the cases of late MKO Abiola, some members of All Progressives Congress, (APC) leaders and activists like late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Dr\u00a0 Beko Ransome Kuti, Mr Femi Falana who were once charged with treasonable felony, Justice Ifeoma Ojukwu granted Sowore bail but imposed punitive conditions.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">JODER said &#8220;The lawyers confronted Justice Ojukwu with the fact that a similar bail granted by her in Col Sambo Dasuki&#8217;s case was declared illegal by the Court of Appeal she set aside the payment of N50 million cash imposed by her on\u00a0 Sowore&#8217;s sureties.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">The group stated further &#8220;But to stop Sowore from travelling round to gather news to publish saharareporters Justice Ojukwu has restricted his movement to Abuja.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">The group said there was a clear and deliberate plot to\u00a0 put an end to Sahara Reporters and similar publications that have broken media conventions in reporting the appalling criminality of corrupt government officials who see free speech and free media as threats to the endless looting of state resources combined with many acts of impunity associated with many Nigerian public officials.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">JODER said the posture of the Nigerian government continues to ridicule the genuine intention of\u00a0 the Anti Terrorism Act\u00a0 which is now being employed to limit the space for democratic freedom.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/alternativeadvert.com\/show.php?z=30&amp;pl=19231&amp;ad_type=81&amp;rl=1800\" width=\"336\" height=\"280\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Terrosism charges is now being used by Nigerian political office holders to\u00a0 silence and intimidate critics of the governmemt, Journalists for Democratic Rights, (JODER) said in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday. JODER berated terrorism charges against a Calabar based lawyer Joseph Odok who had Terrorism slammed in him in Tuesday at the Federal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[5649,5651,5650,858],"class_list":["post-23270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-adewale-adeoye","tag-jalingo-agba","tag-joseph-odok","tag-omoyele-sowore"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/freedom.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-63k","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23270"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23273,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23270\/revisions\/23273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}