“Bring Back Our Girls” is Coming to Denver

A rally to bring back the kidnapped Nigerian girls will be held in Denver

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Kelsey Long, Website Specialist

Students on the Auraria Campus are planning a march today in honor of the girls who where kidnapped by a Nigerian terrorist group. The rally is part of a global campaign to bring these girls back home.

On April 14, nearly 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria were kidnapped. Later that day, an Islamic extremist group known as Boko Haram (translates to Western Education is a Sin) claimed responsibility. The group plans to sell them as slaves, with their leader, Abubakar Shekau, saying he was willing to do it for as little as 12 US dollars. The group has been suspected for recent attacks throughout Nigeria, including two bus bombings in April and a mass murders of 30 schoolchildren in February and 50 in Sept. “Western education should end. Girls, you should go and get married,” Shekau said. “I will repeat this: Western education should fold up. I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” Shekau said, adding that his group was holding the girls as “slaves.”

As people around the world and the United States learned about this, they began the campaign #BringBackOurGirls, a hashtag used by various political leaders and widely known actors such as Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama while some Hollywood actors have coined a similar hashtag, #RealMenDon’tBuyGirls. Justin Timberlake and Bradley Cooper are among a few who have tweeted this.

The United Kingdom and America are planning to assist with the search efforts in an attempt to locate these girls in a rush before the girls are sold. However, Clinton’s State Department has refused to name this group as terrorist despite Clinton calling it an act of terrorism in a tweet stating, “Access to education is a basic right and an unconscionable reason to target innocent girls. We must stand up to terrorism. #BringBackOurGirls.”

The Auraria Campus will be holding the rally at 11 a.m. in front of the Tivoli Campus. Anyone is free to attend.