Israeli filmmakers to spend second Shabbat in Nigerian jail
Three Israeli filmmakers under arrest in Nigeria are set to spend a second Shabbat in jail.
They have not been charged by Nigerian authorities and are
without legal representation, according to members of the Jewish community with
knowledge of the situation.
Rudy Rochman, a pro-Israel activist with almost 95,000
followers on Instagram, filmmaker Andrew Noam Leibman and French-Israeli
journalist Edouard David Benaym were arrested last week while shooting a
documentary in a separatist region of southeast Nigeria.
According to media reports, Nigerian authorities from the
Department of State Services arrested and interrogated the trio on July 9 on
suspicion that they had come in contact with Biafran separatists.
That night, members of the Nigerian Jewish community called
Rabbi Israel Uzan, the Chabad rabbi in Nigeria, who is in France for the
summer.
Chabad, as well as expat Jews living in Nigeria, have been
providing the three men with kosher food and religious items.
“We are here to assist them and assist the parents with
connections, with food for the boys, with everything they need for Shabbat,
with tefillin,” said Uzan.
One of the men entered Nigeria on a French passport, and the
other two on American passports. This made it difficult for the Israeli embassy
to get involved at the onset, according to sources with knowledge of the
situation.
Making matters more complex, the US embassy reduced its
operations Friday as a security precaution, without providing further details.
The Muslim Eid al-Adha
holiday falls next week, meaning the embassy won’t be
operating normally until July 26.
The families of the three Israelis said Wednesday that local
political elements had “twisted” the gifting of a Torah scroll to a local community
to claim it constitutes support for separatist political ambitions.
The Torah scroll is currently with the local community.
The Israelis were in Nigeria to film “We Were Never
Lost,” a documentary exploring Jewish
communities in African countries such as Kenya, Madagascar, Uganda and Nigeria.
They took off from Ben Gurion Airport on July 5 and landed
in Nigeria the next day.
According to locals, the crew was detained at a synagogue
during Thursday night services in the Igbo village of Ogidi by Nigeria’s secret
police and taken to the capital Abuja. The Igbo consider themselves a lost
tribe of Israel.
In their statement, the families explained that the
filmmakers had brought gifts for the communities hosting them.
The group met last week with Igbo leader Eze Chukwuemeka Eri
and presented him with a framed Shiviti made in Jerusalem.
Rochman also presented another Igbo community with a Torah
scroll whose cover was designed by British-Israeli street artist Solomon Souza.
The filmmaking crew thought it would be a nice gesture to
bring several gifts with cultural symbolism to the communities it planned to
visit,” the families said in their statement, adding that one of the gifts was
the Torah scroll.
“Unfortunately, members of non-state political groups have
hijacked for their own purposes images of the filmmakers gifting a Torah to a
local community,” the families charged.
“These individuals are distorting the intentions of the
filmmakers in an effort to manufacture a connection to local political matters
when no such connection exists,” they said. “These politically motivated actors
have taken a simple gesture of kindness and twisted it in an attempt to create
an alternate meaning.”
A relative of one of the men told The Times of Israel on
Tuesday that separatist social media accounts had taken advantage of the
Israelis’ trip to claim that the three were supporting Biafran separatist
groups.
The documentary series “is designed to educate viewers about
the religious and cultural experiences of lesser-known Jewish communities.
Their goal is to interview members of Jewish communities across multiple
African countries, along with Jewish communities in China, India, Afghanistan
and elsewhere,” the families said.
“This documentary is not intended to make any political
statements about the countries in which filming will take place, nor does the
filmmaking team endorse any political movements. The filmmaking crew acts as a
guest visiting the country and its various communities – there are no political
overtones,” they said.
The filmmakers were aware of the political sensitivity
surrounding the filming of the Igbo community. Last Thursday, the “We Were
Never Lost” Facebook page stressed: “We do not take any position on political
movements as we are not here as politicians nor as a part of any governmental
delegations.”
One of the detainees, Benaym, was temporarily released from
police custody Tuesday evening and handed over to the French Embassy in Abuja
for unspecified medical reasons, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman told The
Times of Israel on Wednesday.
The families confirmed the details, stating that “as a sign
of appeasement, the DSS allowed the French Embassy to host Edouard David Benaym
on Tuesday night to receive some medical attention, with the intention of
having him return to DSS custody the next day to continue the investigation.”
While a family friend of one of the detainees told The Times
of Israel that former Israeli minister Ayoub Kara had flown to Nigeria to
assist in the talks, the ministry spokesman said Kara happened to already be in
Nigeria and was not involved in the diplomatic effort.
Kara did not respond to a request for comment.
“We are working diligently with the US, Israeli and French
embassies on the matter, and we greatly appreciate the attention they have
given to the situation. Their involvement has helped to improve the conditions
of the filmmakers while in custody – including the delivery of kosher meals
prepared by the local Chabad,” the detainees’ families said.
“We hope that the DSS will quickly conclude what the facts
support – that the filmmaking team has no political motives and that the team
should be released from custody as soon as possible,” they concluded.
In January, a conflict broke out in southeastern Nigeria between
Nigerian forces and the military wing of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)
movement. The fight is ongoing.
A previous unilateral declaration of independence by the
Igbo people in 1967 sparked a brutal 30-month civil war that left more than a
million people dead.
In 2018, fugitive pro-Biafran separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu
gave a radio broadcast saying he was in Israel and indicating he owed his
survival to the Jewish state.
Kanu, a former London real estate agent, heads IPOB and the
outlawed pirate radio station Radio Biafra. He maintains the Igbo people, who
are in the majority in southeast Nigeria, are a lost tribe of Israel and it is
his mission to lead them to the promised land of Biafra.
Kanu is facing treason charges in his homeland. He was
arrested by Interpol in the Czech Republic in June 2021.
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