On Friday July 3 2009 some officers from the Nigeria Police went to the Child's Right and Rehabilitation Network center,www.crarn.org, in Eket Akwa Ibom State where children alleged to be witches are kept and are being catered for to arrest Sam Ituama and others in charge of the Center. It took several hours to establish who actually sent these officers and why .After several phone calls to Abuja, Lagos and Uyo, it was confirmed that the officers came from Ikoyi in Lagos to arrest Sam and others following a petition from the Calabar based evangelist and head of the Liberty Gospel Church, Helen Ukpabio. Helen petitioned Sam and the rest for making fraudulent confessions, threatening her life etc. Sam was not at the center when the officers arrived, so they arrested Sam's wife Ellie and a member of the staff, Eseme, and took them to the police station in Eket where they were detained. I called the Inspector General of Police(IGP) in Abuja and informed him of the arrest. I later got through to and informed the Commissioner of Police in Uyo Akwa Ibom and the Divisional Police Officer in Eket. Friends from the Amnesty International -who were in the country on a fact finding mission-and Stepping Stones Nigeria joined in making calls and alerting the police. Later the IGP ordered that Ellie and Eseme be released. But several hours after he issued the directive, Ellie and Eseme were still in detention. I called the Commissioner of Police in Akwa Ibom to know why they had not been released And he told me that he had ordered that they be released. He said a woman that called herself an evangelist from Calabar phoned, and was abusing him. She was asking to know why he ordered the release of those who had threatened to kill her. Ellie and Eseme were eventually released around 2am yesterday. Today I got reports that the police officers who arrested Ellie and Eseme beat up 7 of the children at the Center and that two of them sustained serious injuries. It is clear and compelling that Helen Ukpabio whose films and crusades on witchcraft have fuelled the wave of abuse and abandonement of children in the name of witchcraft in Cross River and Akwa Ibom States is bent on using police actions, intimidation, framed allegations and harrassment to undermine the important humanitarian work going on at the Child's Right and Rehabilitation Network The time has come to bring this shameless woman to justice. The children at CRARN are planning a demonstration at the local police station tomorrow. And I will keep you posted