Nigerian Army Shares Trump’s Comments on Migrants Throwing Rocks to Try and Justify Shooting Protesters
In his remarks about immigration, the migrant caravans, and border security yesterday, President Donald Trump made some comments about how troops should react if anyone at the border throws rocks:
“I will tell you this, anybody throwing stones, rocks, like they did to Mexico and the Mexican military, Mexican police, where they badly hurt police and soldiers of Mexico, we will consider that a firearm. Because there’s not much difference. When you get hit in the face with a rock, which as you know, that was very violent a few days ago. Very, very violent.”
He went on to say he wants to consider rocks specifically as rifles.
This morning, video of those remarks were tweeted out by the official Twitter account of the Nigerian army, as an excuse to justify the shooting of protesters in Nigeria days prior:
Please Watch and Make your Deductions. pic.twitter.com/05yVwULFoh
— Nigerian Army (@HQNigerianArmy) November 2, 2018
This past Monday the Nigerian army opened fire as Shi’ite Muslim protesters demonstrated in Abuja. And per multiple reports, some protesters threw rocks.
Amnesty International revealed that at least 39 people were killed during protests on Monday and over 100 sustained serious gunshot wounds. They also concluded that six protesters were killed during demonstrations on Saturday. (You can read more on human rights abuses in Nigeria here, from Amnesty International’s annual report.)
The New York Times received comment from army spokesperson John Agim, defending the attempt to use the words of the U.S. president to justify their actions:
“We released that video to say if President Trump can say that rocks are as good as a rifle, who is Amnesty International?” he said. “What are they then saying? What did David use to kill Goliath? So a stone is a weapon.”
“Our soldiers sustained injuries,” he continued. “The Shiites even burnt one of our vehicles so what are Amnesty International saying?”
[image via screengrab]
