Post by Teddy Bear on May 5, 2014 17:35:15 GMT
It's not often we quote from the Daily Mirror, but in this particular story of the Boko Haram abduction of 329 schoolgirls, they certainly do a far better job of relating events than our national newscasters.
I'll highlight the particular points in the Mirror article that make clear the actions of Boko Haram from the perspective of our society's values, then you can see just what the BBC decided to relate to its audience.
Now when you read the BBC article you can compare just how tame it is in relation to the facts related above.
I'll highlight the particular points in the Mirror article that make clear the actions of Boko Haram from the perspective of our society's values, then you can see just what the BBC decided to relate to its audience.
The schoolgirls stolen as sex slaves by Nigeria's anti-education jihadists Boko Haram
May 03, 2014 10:00 By Rod McPhee
The Islamic terror sect has slaughtered 1,500 this year in attacks on schools and hospitals but international outcry is growing over its kidnapping of 329 girls
When 100 armed men turned up at a girls’ boarding school they claimed to be Nigerian government troops sent to protect the pupils from marauding terrorists.
Staff took them at their word and it was only when 329 terrified teenagers were ordered out of their beds in the dead of night and herded into Toyota Hilux jeeps that they knew something was wrong.
In fact the soldiers were themselves terrorists from the radical Muslim jihadist group Boko Haram – and they were there to carry out one of worst mass kidnappings in modern history.
Families of the schoolgirls, aged from 15 to 18, are certain their daughters are now being used as sex slaves by an extreme sect that has killed 1,500 people since the start of this year alone.
They are captives in the wild Sambisa Forest in north-east Nigeria where Boko Haram has a heavily armed camp of bunkers, tunnels, ramshackle buildings and tents.
One girl who recently escaped following an earlier kidnapping said she was prized as a terror leader’s wife because she had been a virgin. She said young female captives were raped up to 15 times a day, forced to convert to Islam and had their throats cut if they refused.
Since the school abductions on April 14, news has filtered back of mass marriages with girls forcibly shared out as brides. Boko Haram has warned that any attempt to find them will lead to their execution.
Under President Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian government appears to have done little except issue an entirely false claim that most of the girls had been rescued by defence forces. Now as an international outcry builds, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown is travelling to Nigeria on Tuesday in his role as the UN’s special adviser on girls’ education.
His aim is to secure the pupils’ release. But with stories of many already trafficked into neighbouring Chad and Cameroon for just 2,000 nira (£7.50) campaigners fear that without urgent action they will never be seen again.
“It is a very bad situation for those girls,” says Mma Odi, executive director of the Nigerian charity Baobab Women’s Human Rights.
“The men went to the school for no other reason than to make them their sex objects. The men will have reduced them to sex slaves, raping them over and over again. And any girl who tries to resist will be shot by them. They have no conscience.
“The conditions will be terrible and it seems like the government has just abandoned them because they are girls and they are poor. If they were the sons of the rich, the government would act.
“Their abductors are not human beings and if the girls get out they will no longer be normal. They will have to have years of counselling to recover.”
At the time of the abduction most schools in the region had closed because of attacks by a terror sect whose very name, Boko Haram, means “Western education is sinful” in the Hausa language.
Abubakar Shekau, leader of extremist group Boko Haram Warlord: Abubakar Shekau leads the terror group
But these girls had returned to their school in Chibok to take the West Africa Senior School Certificate examination, equivalent to our GCSEs. They were due to start their tests the morning after they were kidnapped at gunpoint.
As the news of the abductions spread, frantic parents rode motorbikes into the forest in pursuit. But they were met by villagers who told them with icy certainty that unless they turned back they would be shot dead by the terrorists.
Some girls managed to escape. In the end 53 got away, but 276 are still missing.
A girl called Rehab, 17, told how she jumped from a truck with schoolmate, Comfort, 15, as they were driven into the forest: “We summoned up some courage and grabbed some of the branches and clung on to them while the truck moved on with the other girls,” she said.
“We jumped down and began to run into the darkness. Comfort and I went in the same direction but four other girls took the path back to a village. We didn’t know where we were but we kept running.”
Malam Ali Iliya is the father of another schoolgirl who escaped.
“My daughter said when the trailer got stuck, some of the girls began to jump out and run for their lives and she followed suit. We are lucky our children were not shot,” he said.
Boko Haram’s goal is to turn Nigeria into a devout Muslim state under Sharia law. It bombs churches and schools and slaughters men, women and children.
In February its forces attacked a boys’ boarding school, locked the pupils in a building then set it on fire. Any boys who got out had their throats cut and 59 died.
There are fears that the same sect’s teachings inspired Lee Rigby’s London killers Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who are both of Nigerian origin.
Olugbenro Olajuyigbe of aid group ActionAid said: “This is the deadliest terrorist group in the world today. Even al-Qaeda weren’t taking hostages like this. Abducting minors like this wasn’t attractive to them. But we were not surprised when they took the young girls. They don’t give a damn about anybody.
“Time is now ticking. I would not be surprised if some are already dead.”
Boko Haram was founded in 2002 by Muslim cleric, Mohammed Yusuf. When he was killed in 2009 the Nigerian government believed the group was finished. But it re-emerged a year later under new leader Abubakar Shekau, who now has a £4million bounty on his head.
As violence escalated Nigeria’s north-east states were placed under emergency rule 11 months ago.
Vigilantes formed a Civilian Joint Task force with government backing and last month went into Sambisa Forest and killed more than 200 terrorists.
Then in the week when the schoolgirls were abducted, a Boko Haram bomb killed 75 people in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
The country’s government maintains it is doing all it can. But the girls’ families and campaigners are sceptical.
“They claim they are on top of the situation, that they are in the bush, but they are not there,” says Professor Hauwa Biu, a women’s rights campaigner based at the University of Maiduguri in the state of Borno.
“If the government had acted straight away then they could have followed the gunmen’s footsteps or tyre tracks, but over the past weeks rain and leaves have fallen, covering them up.
“Meanwhile, nobody knows what kind of conditions they will be living in the camp.
"I cannot think what these girls must be going through.
“I have been told that the men feed them and treat them quite well, but we also know that other girls kidnapped have been highly molested.
"If the government had just acted straight away they could have saved these girls.”
Relatives and women’s groups this week staged a protest march on parliament in Abuja.
One father said: “We are poor with no influence at all. We believe this is the reason the government does not care.”
Meanwhile, Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani girl who survived being shot by the Taliban after she spoke up for female education, has also demanded action.
“The world should put all hands on deck to rescue the innocent girls from the Boko Haram sect,” she said.
“Islam accepts female education and any person that is against that is not a true Muslim.”
And as he gets ready for his difficult mission to Nigeria on Tuesday, Gordon Brown said: “Abducting children is a heinous crime that the international authorities are determined to punish.”
May 03, 2014 10:00 By Rod McPhee
The Islamic terror sect has slaughtered 1,500 this year in attacks on schools and hospitals but international outcry is growing over its kidnapping of 329 girls
When 100 armed men turned up at a girls’ boarding school they claimed to be Nigerian government troops sent to protect the pupils from marauding terrorists.
Staff took them at their word and it was only when 329 terrified teenagers were ordered out of their beds in the dead of night and herded into Toyota Hilux jeeps that they knew something was wrong.
In fact the soldiers were themselves terrorists from the radical Muslim jihadist group Boko Haram – and they were there to carry out one of worst mass kidnappings in modern history.
Families of the schoolgirls, aged from 15 to 18, are certain their daughters are now being used as sex slaves by an extreme sect that has killed 1,500 people since the start of this year alone.
They are captives in the wild Sambisa Forest in north-east Nigeria where Boko Haram has a heavily armed camp of bunkers, tunnels, ramshackle buildings and tents.
One girl who recently escaped following an earlier kidnapping said she was prized as a terror leader’s wife because she had been a virgin. She said young female captives were raped up to 15 times a day, forced to convert to Islam and had their throats cut if they refused.
Since the school abductions on April 14, news has filtered back of mass marriages with girls forcibly shared out as brides. Boko Haram has warned that any attempt to find them will lead to their execution.
Under President Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian government appears to have done little except issue an entirely false claim that most of the girls had been rescued by defence forces. Now as an international outcry builds, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown is travelling to Nigeria on Tuesday in his role as the UN’s special adviser on girls’ education.
His aim is to secure the pupils’ release. But with stories of many already trafficked into neighbouring Chad and Cameroon for just 2,000 nira (£7.50) campaigners fear that without urgent action they will never be seen again.
“It is a very bad situation for those girls,” says Mma Odi, executive director of the Nigerian charity Baobab Women’s Human Rights.
“The men went to the school for no other reason than to make them their sex objects. The men will have reduced them to sex slaves, raping them over and over again. And any girl who tries to resist will be shot by them. They have no conscience.
“The conditions will be terrible and it seems like the government has just abandoned them because they are girls and they are poor. If they were the sons of the rich, the government would act.
“Their abductors are not human beings and if the girls get out they will no longer be normal. They will have to have years of counselling to recover.”
At the time of the abduction most schools in the region had closed because of attacks by a terror sect whose very name, Boko Haram, means “Western education is sinful” in the Hausa language.
Abubakar Shekau, leader of extremist group Boko Haram Warlord: Abubakar Shekau leads the terror group
But these girls had returned to their school in Chibok to take the West Africa Senior School Certificate examination, equivalent to our GCSEs. They were due to start their tests the morning after they were kidnapped at gunpoint.
As the news of the abductions spread, frantic parents rode motorbikes into the forest in pursuit. But they were met by villagers who told them with icy certainty that unless they turned back they would be shot dead by the terrorists.
Some girls managed to escape. In the end 53 got away, but 276 are still missing.
A girl called Rehab, 17, told how she jumped from a truck with schoolmate, Comfort, 15, as they were driven into the forest: “We summoned up some courage and grabbed some of the branches and clung on to them while the truck moved on with the other girls,” she said.
“We jumped down and began to run into the darkness. Comfort and I went in the same direction but four other girls took the path back to a village. We didn’t know where we were but we kept running.”
Malam Ali Iliya is the father of another schoolgirl who escaped.
“My daughter said when the trailer got stuck, some of the girls began to jump out and run for their lives and she followed suit. We are lucky our children were not shot,” he said.
Boko Haram’s goal is to turn Nigeria into a devout Muslim state under Sharia law. It bombs churches and schools and slaughters men, women and children.
In February its forces attacked a boys’ boarding school, locked the pupils in a building then set it on fire. Any boys who got out had their throats cut and 59 died.
There are fears that the same sect’s teachings inspired Lee Rigby’s London killers Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who are both of Nigerian origin.
Olugbenro Olajuyigbe of aid group ActionAid said: “This is the deadliest terrorist group in the world today. Even al-Qaeda weren’t taking hostages like this. Abducting minors like this wasn’t attractive to them. But we were not surprised when they took the young girls. They don’t give a damn about anybody.
“Time is now ticking. I would not be surprised if some are already dead.”
Boko Haram was founded in 2002 by Muslim cleric, Mohammed Yusuf. When he was killed in 2009 the Nigerian government believed the group was finished. But it re-emerged a year later under new leader Abubakar Shekau, who now has a £4million bounty on his head.
As violence escalated Nigeria’s north-east states were placed under emergency rule 11 months ago.
Vigilantes formed a Civilian Joint Task force with government backing and last month went into Sambisa Forest and killed more than 200 terrorists.
Then in the week when the schoolgirls were abducted, a Boko Haram bomb killed 75 people in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
The country’s government maintains it is doing all it can. But the girls’ families and campaigners are sceptical.
“They claim they are on top of the situation, that they are in the bush, but they are not there,” says Professor Hauwa Biu, a women’s rights campaigner based at the University of Maiduguri in the state of Borno.
“If the government had acted straight away then they could have followed the gunmen’s footsteps or tyre tracks, but over the past weeks rain and leaves have fallen, covering them up.
“Meanwhile, nobody knows what kind of conditions they will be living in the camp.
"I cannot think what these girls must be going through.
“I have been told that the men feed them and treat them quite well, but we also know that other girls kidnapped have been highly molested.
"If the government had just acted straight away they could have saved these girls.”
Relatives and women’s groups this week staged a protest march on parliament in Abuja.
One father said: “We are poor with no influence at all. We believe this is the reason the government does not care.”
Meanwhile, Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani girl who survived being shot by the Taliban after she spoke up for female education, has also demanded action.
“The world should put all hands on deck to rescue the innocent girls from the Boko Haram sect,” she said.
“Islam accepts female education and any person that is against that is not a true Muslim.”
And as he gets ready for his difficult mission to Nigeria on Tuesday, Gordon Brown said: “Abducting children is a heinous crime that the international authorities are determined to punish.”
Now when you read the BBC article you can compare just how tame it is in relation to the facts related above.
Boko Haram 'to sell' Nigeria girls abducted from Chibok
The BBC's Tomi Oladipo says it is not clear from the video what the fate of the abducted girls is
Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram has threatened to "sell" the hundreds of schoolgirls it abducted three weeks ago.
Militant leader Abubakar Shekau sent a video obtained by the AFP news agency, in which he said for the first time that his group had taken the girls.
About 230 girls are still believed to be missing, prompting widespread criticism of the Nigerian government.
The Boko Haram insurgency has left thousands dead since 2009.
The girls were taken from their boarding school in Chibok, in the northern state of Borno, on the night of 14 April.
Mothers of the missing girls have been speaking to the BBC
Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden", has attacked numerous educational institutions in northern Nigeria.
'God instructed me'
In the video, Abubakar Shekau said the girls should not have been in school in the first place, but rather should get married.
"God instructed me to sell them, they are his properties and I will carry out his instructions," he said.
However, BBC Hausa Service editor Mansur Liman points out that the Boko Haram leader did not state the number of girls abducted, nor where they were taken or are now.
Assurances from President Goodluck Jonathan have done little to convince Nigerians of the government's commitment to freeing the girls, says our correspondent.
The Associated Press news agency says it is unclear whether the video was made before or after reports last week that some of the girls had been forced to marry their abductors, who paid a nominal bride price of $12 (£9).
Others are reported to have been taken across borders into Cameroon and Chad.
The girls were in their final year of school, most of them aged 16 to 18.
The BBC Hausa Service has received reports of a gun battle on the Nigeria-Cameroon border, and houses being burnt down by individuals suspected to be members of Boko Haram.
No further details are available.
Protest organiser detained
Meanwhile, a woman who helped organise protests over the abduction was detained and later released.
Naomi Mutah was taken to a police station after a meeting called by First Lady Patience Jonathan.
Mrs Jonathan reportedly felt slighted that the girls' mothers had sent Ms Mutah to the meeting instead of going themselves.
Mrs Jonathan is seen as a politically powerful figure in Nigeria but has no constitutional power to order arrests.
Ms Mutah, a representative of the Chibok community, organised a protest last week outside parliament in Abuja.
President Goodluck Jonathan: "Wherever these girls are, we will surely get them out"
Pogo Bitrus, another Chibok leader, described Ms Mutah's detention as "insensitive", telling the BBC he hoped Mrs Jonathan would soon "realise her mistake".
The AP news agency quotes another community leader, Saratu Angus Ndirpaya, as saying that Mrs Jonathan accused the activists of fabricating the abductions and supporting Boko Haram.
In a TV broadcast on Sunday, his first comment on the abductions, President Jonathan said he did not know where the girls were but everything was being done to find them.
The BBC's Tomi Oladipo says it is not clear from the video what the fate of the abducted girls is
Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram has threatened to "sell" the hundreds of schoolgirls it abducted three weeks ago.
Militant leader Abubakar Shekau sent a video obtained by the AFP news agency, in which he said for the first time that his group had taken the girls.
About 230 girls are still believed to be missing, prompting widespread criticism of the Nigerian government.
The Boko Haram insurgency has left thousands dead since 2009.
The girls were taken from their boarding school in Chibok, in the northern state of Borno, on the night of 14 April.
Mothers of the missing girls have been speaking to the BBC
Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden", has attacked numerous educational institutions in northern Nigeria.
'God instructed me'
In the video, Abubakar Shekau said the girls should not have been in school in the first place, but rather should get married.
"God instructed me to sell them, they are his properties and I will carry out his instructions," he said.
However, BBC Hausa Service editor Mansur Liman points out that the Boko Haram leader did not state the number of girls abducted, nor where they were taken or are now.
Assurances from President Goodluck Jonathan have done little to convince Nigerians of the government's commitment to freeing the girls, says our correspondent.
The Associated Press news agency says it is unclear whether the video was made before or after reports last week that some of the girls had been forced to marry their abductors, who paid a nominal bride price of $12 (£9).
Others are reported to have been taken across borders into Cameroon and Chad.
The girls were in their final year of school, most of them aged 16 to 18.
The BBC Hausa Service has received reports of a gun battle on the Nigeria-Cameroon border, and houses being burnt down by individuals suspected to be members of Boko Haram.
No further details are available.
Protest organiser detained
Meanwhile, a woman who helped organise protests over the abduction was detained and later released.
Naomi Mutah was taken to a police station after a meeting called by First Lady Patience Jonathan.
Mrs Jonathan reportedly felt slighted that the girls' mothers had sent Ms Mutah to the meeting instead of going themselves.
Mrs Jonathan is seen as a politically powerful figure in Nigeria but has no constitutional power to order arrests.
Ms Mutah, a representative of the Chibok community, organised a protest last week outside parliament in Abuja.
President Goodluck Jonathan: "Wherever these girls are, we will surely get them out"
Pogo Bitrus, another Chibok leader, described Ms Mutah's detention as "insensitive", telling the BBC he hoped Mrs Jonathan would soon "realise her mistake".
The AP news agency quotes another community leader, Saratu Angus Ndirpaya, as saying that Mrs Jonathan accused the activists of fabricating the abductions and supporting Boko Haram.
In a TV broadcast on Sunday, his first comment on the abductions, President Jonathan said he did not know where the girls were but everything was being done to find them.
