Raising awareness of global torture

[struggle4progress]

Nigerian activist speaks to teens in Rockville Centre about violence he endured in his native country

BY CRISTINA E. DESPOSITO
STAFF WRITER
April 7, 2005

<snip> Omoyele gained U.S. political asylum six years ago and now lives in Englewood, N.J., where he works for Catholic Charities, helping refugees start new lives and travels the country creating awareness of torture that he says continues in many countries.

Koch courted him for four months to visit his school, where about 80 students stayed after school yesterday to hear his message.

"You don't want to know what I've been through," Omoyele told the students, but when one of them asked, he said he had been beaten severely, put in solitary confinement, immersed in freezing water and injected with some unknown chemical, all because the government though he was disloyal.

He said he was jailed eight times, but persevered and went on to graduate from the University of Lagos before coming here and studying further at Columbia University. <snip>

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lihigh074207078apr07,0,1625817.story?coll=ny-linews-headlines