Two Nigerian journalists whose paper published a report of alleged abuses by troops battling Islamist extremists were arrested and held for eight days by the secret police, one of them said yesterday after their release.

They were manhandled but not abused while in custody

The editor of Al-Mizan, Musa Muhammad Awwal, and reporter Aliyu Saleh were on Tuesday released by the state security services (SSS), Awwal said.

In pre-dawn raids on December 24, agents of the SSS picked up the journalists, along with their wives and Saleh’s son, from their homes in the northern city of Kaduna, where the regional newspaper has an office.

Their wives and the son were released later that day.

“We were released... yesterday afternoon from the SSS headquarters in Abuja where we were kept after our arrest,” Awwal said.

“Throughout our detention we were not told our offence, but they still have our mobile phones and laptops, which they said would be returned to us as soon as they are done with their investigation.”

Awwal said they were manhandled while being arrested, but not abused while being held in custody.

The SSS declined to comment on the arrests.

The newspaper said it believed the pair had been held in connection with a story it published on the arrests of 84 people in the town of Potiskum by soldiers on suspicion of belonging to Islamist extremist group Boko Haram. The detainees’ families were reportedly denied access to them.

Al-Mizan was established in 1991 and published in the Hausa language spoken throughout Nigeria’s north.