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afrol News, 9 August - After heavy international critiques earlier this year, Nigeria has now started to crack down on violent vigilante groups, previously tolerated and promoted by the police. Groups such as the so-called "Bakassi Boys" are accused of widespread torture and routinely executing alleged criminals. The BBC yesterday reported that the Nigerian police had arrested more than 30 people and "closed down what they described as torture centres belonging to the group known as the Bakassi Boys." This is the first known police action against the growing number of violent vigilante groups in Nigeria. The Nigerian police action "follows growing concern that such vigilante organisations may be used as hired thugs by local politicians in the forthcoming election period," the BBC reported from Nigeria. On 20 May, the US group Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Nigerian Centre for Law Enforcement Education had brought the growing problem into international media's attention by releasing the report "Nigeria: The Bakassi Boys: The Legitimisation of Murder and Torture." The groups' report describes how the Bakassi Boys - active in the south-eastern Nigerian states of Anambra, Abia, and Imo - have been responsible for scores of extrajudicial executions and hundreds of cases of torture and arbitrary detentions. "These abuses have been tolerated, and sometimes actively supported and encouraged, by state government authorities," HRW reported. "Effectively, the Bakassi Boys have taken over the functions of law enforcement agencies in these states, yet they are completely unaccountable," said HRW's Carina Tertsakian. Until now, and only in the few cases, members of the Bakassi Boys implicated in crimes had been arrested by the police. They had however almost always been released soon afterwards following the intervention of state government officials. The Nigerian government has not yet indicated whether the recent crack down is the beginning of a general prohibition of the vigilante groups.
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