Source: Anadolu Agency / Getty
Nigeria finds itself the center of attention due to an ongoing protest effort under the name End SARS, stylized as #EndSARS on social media channels, which takes aim at the African nation’s use of a brutal police unit. Several entertainers have shown their support for the social movement, including big names such as
Beyoncé,
Rihanna, and
Burna Boy among others.
As explained via Wikipedia, the SARS unit is a special faction of Nigeria’s police force accused of a number of violent offenses over the past several years.
From the Wiki
page:
The slogan calls for an end to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a controversial unit of the Nigerian Police Force with a long record of abuses. The protests started in 2017 as a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #ENDSARS to demand the Nigerian government eliminate the force. After experiencing a revitalization in October 2020, mass demonstrations were occurring throughout Nigeria in major cities, and the hashtag had 28 million tweets Nigerians have shared both stories and video evidence of how members of SARS engaged in kidnapping, murder, theft, rape, torture, unlawful arrests, humiliation, unlawful detention, extrajudicial killings, and extortion in Nigeria. SARS officers have been alleged to profile youths based on fashion choices, mount illegal road blocks and searches, conduct unwarranted temperature checks, arrest without warrant, rape women, and extort young Nigerians for driving exotic vehicles and using iPhones.
As mentioned above, Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Burna Boy join the likes of Nicki Minaj, rapper CupcaKKe, author J.J. Omojuwa and more in standing in support of the protesters. We’ve got their responses listed out in the playlist below.
For more information on the #EndSARS movement, click here.
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