Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I was saddened and horrified to read of what appears to be large scale executions of folk in Nigeria after an anti Western sect had attacked police stations and the police and army responded. At the end, it is claimed that, after the fighting had ended, over 1000 unarmed folk were simply picked up, even randomly, and executed in public with the officers showing their identity and not hiding their name tags. Of course, this film could be a forgery. It's been done before, but this attracted my attention and I am shaken by it. I can imagine some justification for killing "terrorists" who blow up police stations, but unarmed civilians is another matter. Maybe the inquiry that is supposed to occur will determine that the people massacred were in fact criminals. However, that remains to be seen.
The footage, however, is worth looking at here.
As much as empathize with the Christian Ibo recently killed in Northern Nigeria by militants wanting to set up Sharia law for them too and as much as I dislike militant extremism of any brand of religion, it's hard to see this mass killing as being justified. I guess the police could argue that the men were not picked at random but were indeed terrorists who had changed into civilian clothes. Those with crutches could have been wounded in the last battle and responsible for atrocities themselves. Still, the scale is huge.
The only other explanation is that the people were indeed just residents picked at random as suggested in the Al Jazeera video. Perhaps this open public event was simply designed to utterly intimidate anyone in that area else who might contemplate doing the same thing, even if they were not guilty now!
Either way, we're not very advanced, now are we!
Asher
The footage, however, is worth looking at here.
As much as empathize with the Christian Ibo recently killed in Northern Nigeria by militants wanting to set up Sharia law for them too and as much as I dislike militant extremism of any brand of religion, it's hard to see this mass killing as being justified. I guess the police could argue that the men were not picked at random but were indeed terrorists who had changed into civilian clothes. Those with crutches could have been wounded in the last battle and responsible for atrocities themselves. Still, the scale is huge.
The only other explanation is that the people were indeed just residents picked at random as suggested in the Al Jazeera video. Perhaps this open public event was simply designed to utterly intimidate anyone in that area else who might contemplate doing the same thing, even if they were not guilty now!
Either way, we're not very advanced, now are we!
Asher