Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 10:18:43 -0400 (EDT)



From: Toni Bloodworth <Toni.Bloodworth-AT-vcp.monash.edu.au>
Subject: Solidarity Action Requested-Arrestees in Nigeria face death pena

Please distribute as widely as possible.
CALL FOR SOLIDARITY

Workers internationally are asked to step up the protests against the 
brutal repression in Nigeria by the military dictatorship backed by 
Shell Oil.
Femi Aborisade, former editor of Nigeria's "Militant" newspaper and 
currently director of organisation for the opposition National 
Conscience Party, has been held in solitary confinement for 3 months. 
He has not even been allowed to attend church services which would be 
the only chance of contact with other people.  He has not been 
allowed a change of clothes in the whole of that time, and is being 
held 2,000 kilometres from his home and not even informed if anyone 
is trying to visit him.  He is charged with treason and faces the 
death penalty if found guilty.
Last week, the former vice-president of the dissolved Nigerian Labour 
Congress, currently General Secretary of the National Union of 
Textile and Garment Workers was arrested for criticising the erosion 
of trade union independence.  There are reports that other labour 
activists in detention have been castrated!
Biodun Olamosu, another supporter of Nigerian "Militant", was hunted 
down like an animal. Unable to arrest him, the state forces arrested 
and held four of his close friends for months as bait to catch him.  
Biodun has now been arrested as he made contact wiht lawyers for the 
release of his friends.  He is being held in atrocious conditions and 
is being routinely beaten and denied food.
A spokesperson for the Nigerian "Militant" in Lagos explained that 
>from his own recent experience, the usual diet is a cupful of beans 
in a bowl of water dished out to about 50 prisoners.  "Many prisoners 
simply die", he said.
The Campaign for Independent Unions in Nigeria (CIU) is stepping up 
its actions against Shell.  Some of Shell's despicable activities 
have been exposed recently in ITV's World in Action and the CIU is 
preparing a video to tell the world what's happening.
The CIU in Britain, along with the African Liberation Support 
Campaign (ALISC) are organising a visit to Britain by representatives 
of equivalent organisations in Nigeria.  If you can organise a 
meeting, factory visit, or collection, please contact CIU (Britain) 
PO Box 256, London SE11 5th, or Militant Labour.
If you can get your trade union or other organisation to sponsor the 
visit it would be a great help.  Appeal sheets are available from the 
above address. Resolutions through trade unions etc for the boycott 
of Shell are also called for by every citizen of Nigeria who hate 
this giant monopoly for the murderous exploitation of their country. 

Send your condemnation of the barbaric treatment of labour 
movement activists, support for the right of trade unions to 
organise withour interference from the State and demands for the
 immediate release of all political prisoners in Nigeria to:
General Abacha, State House, Abuja, Nigeria, Fax 00 234 523 2138.
Copies to : NCP, PO Box 1114 Surulere, Lagos State, Nigeria and CIU, 
PO Box 496, Agege, Lagos, Nigeria.
..........................................................................
.....
e-mail:Toni.Bloodworth-AT-VCP.Monash.edu.au
Ph: (03) 9903 9528
snail-mail : Monash university,
Dept. Pharmaceutics, Victorian College of Pharmacy
381 Royal Pde, Parkville, Vic 3052, Australia
..........................................................................
...
       ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
++++ if you agree copy these 3 sentences in your own sig ++++
++++ more info:http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm++++



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