Nigeria arrests 2 journalists after army abuse story: paper

Nigeria's secret police on Monday arrested two journalists after a report of alleged abuses by troops battling Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, AFP reports citing their newspaper. Agents of the state security service (SSS), in pre-dawn raids, picked up the editor of Almizan, Musa Muhammad Awwal, and reporter Aliyu Saleh, along with their wives, the weekly's editor-in-chief Ibrahim Musa told AFP. Saleh's son was also arrested, he said. The arrests occurred in the northern city of Kaduna, where the regional newspaper has an office. Their wives and the son were released later Monday, he said. "Armed men from the SSS accompanied by soldiers broke into the homes of our editor ... and reporter ... around 4:00 am today and took them away along with their two wives and the son of the reporter after manhandling them," Musa said. "We believe their arrest was in connection with a story we published in our latest edition on the arrests of 84 people in the town of Potiskum in Yobe state by soldiers on suspicion of belonging to Boko Haram sect and denying their families access to them." During the raid, SSS officials took away laptops and mobile phones from the journalists' homes, he said. Secret police officials did not respond to phone calls. Almizan, established in 1991 and published in the Hausa language spoken throughout Nigeria's north, is run by the Shiite and pro-Iranian Islamic Movement of Nigeria. Residents and human rights bodies have accused troops of abuses, including arbitrary arrests and killings of civilians, in connection with Boko Haram's insurgency in Nigeria's northern and central regions. Violence linked to the insurgency is believed to have left some 3,000 people dead since 2009, including killings by the security forces.