Luka Binniyat

Gender: Male
Print Journalist

On November 4, police officers in Barnawa, a town in the northern state of Kaduna, arrested Binniyat, a freelance journalist who contributes to the U.S.-based news outlet The Epoch Times, according to an Epoch Times report and Jonathan Asake, president of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, a local rights group, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview. Officers took Binniyat to the police headquarters in Gabasawa, in northern Kaduna state, where they revealed that he had been arrested in response to a complaint by Samuel Aruwan, the state’s commissioner for internal security and home affairs, over an October 29 report that Binniyat had published in The Epoch Times, according to Asake and that report. On November 8, police filed charges with a magistrate court under Section 24 (B) of the Cybercrimes Act, and took Binniyat to a local prison, according to Asake and Binniyat’s lawyer, Ehizogie F. Imadojemu, who spoke by phone with CPJ. On November 9, Binniyat was arraigned and the court denied his bail application, according to Imadojemu and another report by The Epoch Times.

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