Your views are important to us.  NIGERIA: Deadly sectarian riot
over alleged blasphemy  KANO, 4 February 2008 (IRIN) - A violent
clash between a Muslim mob and the police over a woman accused
of blaspheming the prophet Mohammed in the north-central Nigeria
state of Bauchi left at least one person dead and five seriously
injured.  “The youths stormed the police station and insisted on
taking the law into their hands,” Bauchi police-chief Adnan
Tolman Gaya told IRIN, adding that police had taken the woman
into custody on 2 February to protect her from the crowd.  The
police shot live bullets at the crowd, killing a man in his
early 20s. “My men were under threat and had no option but to
shoot into the crowd in self-defence,” Gaya said.  The youths
then torched the police station and looted houses of policemen
and Christians in the town, according to eye-witness accounts.
Nigeria has a long history of Muslim-Christian tension and
periodic violent clashes, especially in the north.  In December
2007 sectarian rio