Search for Common Ground (Search), an International Non-Profit Organisation dedicated to promoting peaceful conflict resolution, has organized a three-day training for human rights lawyers in Sokoto on how best to protect freedom of religion and belief in their day-to-day activities.
The organisation which has been operating in Nigeria since 2004, with a mission to transform the way conflicts are addressed, aims to foster cooperative solutions and help conflicting parties understand their differences and commonalities.
The training sessions focused on human rights laws related to Freedom of Religion or Belief, and to equip legal practitioners with the necessary skills to address cases of religiously motivated violations and protect the religious freedom rights of
Nigerian citizens.
This training according to the organizers brought Human Rights defenders from across all the states in the North West geopolitical zone of Nigeria.
“The training also commemorated the International Day of Human Rights, which was held on the 10th Dec. 2023 with the global theme: “Freedom, Equality, and Justice for All.” Search for Common Ground shares this vision and continues to work diligently towards these fundamental principles in Nigeria and beyond”.
The Senior Media Officer to the project, Katlong Dasat, while speaking to newsmen on Wednesday as part of the activities of the organization while rounding up the training said the major aim of the project is to empower legal practitioners and build their capacity to be able to protect victims of religions violation.
She emphasised that the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides room for the right to religion which she said many Nigerians irrespective of their fate lack knowledge of what to do when their religious right is violated.
She said the training will equip lawyers as well as journalists to report and prosecute any violators of such rights irrespective of his or her status in society.
Speaking on the importance of the training, a legal practitioner, Isiah Abubakar, who is also a member of the National Human Rights Commission in Sokoto commended the organizers of the training for coming up with such important training.
He said lawyers who attended the training have benefited a lot to understand that pockets of religious intolerance witnessed in the country are caused by ignorance. He however said once the knowledge learnt in the three days of training is passed onto the society, more people will understand that religion should be tolerated accordingly.
Also speaking, Barrister Hajara Hamza, another lawyer who also with newsmen after the exercise said the training has equipped them to understand that every citizen of the country is entitled to his or her religious belief.
She however assured that the training has equipped her to be able to handle any issue of religion violation better than before in accordance with the rule of law.
She however identified issue of communication gap as one of the major reasons causing religious intolerance in the country.
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