The soldiers reinforced and stormed the Sheikh’s house at 9 a.m. We tried to stand our ground but they killed many of us, including my female friend, until they got into the house at 11 a.m. I saw at least 30 soldiers including one on a tank. I got shot and was in so much pain I could no longer stay. I went to the makeshift clinic members set up during the night to treat the injured. It was just three houses away. I was horrified at what I saw there. All the injured people we took there all night, the doctor and the two nurses helping him had been shot. I think they would have been more than 50 of them there. I ran when I got the chance.

The Islamic Movement of Nigeria
Sheik Zakzaky is a key figure in the growth of Islamic movements in Nigeria. In 1978, while a student at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, he was a prominent leader of Nigeria’s Muslim Students Society, or the Muslim Brothers. In 1979, he became the national vice-president of the group. After traveling to Iran in 1980, he became a proponent of Shia Islam.

As his influence grew, there were frequent clashes between his group and some Sunni sects, in part because they resisted Shia use of mosques for prayer and other activities in northern Nigeria cities of Kano, Katsina, and Sokoto, among other towns. Nigerian security forces destroyed the IMN headquarters in Sokoto in July 2007, after clashes between Sunni and Shia groups following the shooting of a popular Sunni cleric.

Although Zakzaky’s supporters claim he does not advocate or encourage violence, he has been involved in several previous clashes with security forces. In the mid-1980s to late 1990s, he was detained many times by successive military regimes for his anti-government rhetoric and for advocating an Iran-style Islamic revolutionary government in Nigeria. In a deadly September 2009 clash with police in Zaria, Zakzaky accused the government of intimidation and attempting to wipe out his movement. In July 2014, three of Zakzaky’s sons were killed, along with 32 other sect members, in a clash with soldiers during a religious procession in Zaria.

Some residents in Zaria and in other locations are openly hostile to Shia sect members. Avideo posted on YouTube after the December 12, 2015 events appears to show people snatching valuables from corpses of slain sect members. Some witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the Sheik’s neighbors took advantage of the military raid to also attack Shia with clubs, knifes, and machetes, injuring a number of them.

During the December 17 news conference to announce a judicial inquiry, the Kaduna state governor said that Zakzaky’s sect has been involved in disputes over the use of mosques constructed by other Muslims. Officials also complained of the inconvenience caused to travelers and other road users during Shiite processions, the violation of government building regulations in the construction of the Hussainniyah mosque, and what they said was the group’s disregard for Nigerian government authorities. The governor said that Zakzaky’s movement operated as a “state within a state.”

Clashes with Boko Haram
Zakzaky; Muhammed Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram; and Yusuf’s deputies, such as Abubakar Shekau, were all members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, in the late 1990s. Zakzaky’s Shia beliefs led to a rift within the group. Yusuf left with his deputies to form the Nigerian Taliban in 2002, which later became the extremist Islamic group popularly called Boko Haram. Zakzaky openly preached against Boko Haram’s radical vision of Islam, leading to considerable animosity between the two groups. Boko Haram has targeted and killed Shia, along with other civilians. Human Rights Watch has documented an estimated 9,500 civilian deaths since the beginning of the violent Boko Haram attacks in 2009.

In May 2012, Muhammad Ali, a former close companion of Muhammed Yusuf who had become a Shia leader, was shot and killed at his home in Kano, by gunmen believed to be members of Boko Haram, media reports said. On November 27, 2015, a suicide bomb attack on a Shia procession in Kano killed 22 people. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attack, threatening to “wipe out” the Shia.

Past Abusive Behavior of Nigeria Security Forces
The attack on the Shia in Zaria follows a well-documented pattern of serious human rights abuses against civilians by Nigerian security forces, including for mass arrests, prolonged detention without trial, cruel and inhuman treatment, torture of detainees, and extra judicial killings.

The International Criminal Court, in November 2010, said it was monitoring the situation in Nigeria. In a November 2015 report, the office of the prosecutor detailed six possible cases of crimes falling within its jurisdiction against Boko Haram and two possible cases against Nigerian security forces for crimes against humanity and war crimes in relation to the northeast insurgency.