Primary document · United Nations legal opinion

UN Working Group opinion on the detention of Omoyele Sowore

UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

Opinion No. 27/2020 concerning Nigerian journalist and Sahara Reporters publisher Omoyele Sowore, arrested ahead of planned RevolutionNow demonstrations in August 2019.

Document of record · OHCHR · Opinion No. 27/2020

Adopted at the 87th session · 27 April–1 May 2020

Key extracts & findings

Record 1

Arrest before the demonstrations

Sowore was arrested on 3 August 2019, before demonstrations planned for 5 August. The Government submitted a response to the Working Group; the opinion records and assesses both accounts.

Finding 1

Detention found arbitrary

The Working Group found the deprivation of liberty arbitrary under categories I, II and III: without sufficient legal basis, connected to protected expression and assembly, and accompanied by fair-trial violations.

Finding 2

Release and compensation recommended

The Working Group called for immediate release and an enforceable right to compensation and other reparation. Its opinion is an authoritative UN finding, not a domestic criminal judgment.

Extracts are summarised from the document of record, which is linked above. Where a passage is disputed, this newsroom will publish the correction alongside the extract.