As eyewitnesses reported, at 9 am local time on Wednesday, 12 trucks carrying fully armed police forces surrounded Imam Mahdi (as) Husseiniyah in Nigeria's Sokoto state.
Informed sources said that one of the five governors of the northern states of the country has been ordered by the Saudis for the genocide of Shiites in Nigeria.
Addressing the Police forces, one of the people present in the place said, "What is the purpose of surrounding this Husseiniyah? The world is watching you."
On August 23, at least three people were killed and dozens of others injured after Nigerian police attacked mourners marking the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (AS), the third Shia Imam and grandson of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), in the northern state of Kaduna.
The casualties took place on Saturday evening when police and security forces violently attacked an annual Ashura mourning ceremony that had been organized by the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) in Hayin Bello neighborhood of Kaduna, Press TV reported.
The IMN, led by prominent Muslim cleric Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, said on its Twitter account that police had also fired teargas at mourners in the ceremony and vandalized their vehicles.
The Nigerian government has been cracking down on Shia Muslim ceremonies for several years and has also banned the IMN, whose members regularly take to the streets of the capital Abuja to call for the release of their leader.
Zakzaky, who is in his mid-60s, has been in detention since December 2015 after his residence in the city of Zaria was raided by Nigeria’s forces, during which he was beaten and lost vision in his left eye.
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