LAGOS (AFP) - Nigerian secret police briefly detained some US labour officials for allegedly distributing leaflets in support of protests against a recent fuel price hike in the west African country, officials said.
"It is true that some Americans were questioned but they were promptly released after the session," a spokesman for the Department of State Security Service (SSS) told AFP by telephone.
He did not elaborate on the reasons for the arrest, but press reports said some 15 staff of the American Labour Solidarity Centre were detained on Friday in Abuja.
This Day newspaper reported that the security men raided the office of the US non-governmental organisation, arrested the officials and "briefly" detained them.
It said they were accused of distributing "inciting leaflets" supporting the protests against increases in petrol prices in the country.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) launched a strike on Monday in protest at a 25-percent hike in fuel prices. The protest was suspended on Thursday, when the central trade unions movement gave the government two weeks to reverse the price increase.
The US solidarity centre is an arm of the international wing of the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisation.
The body has asked President George Bush to sanction Nigeria over the government's anti-labour bill, currently before the Nigerian House of Representatives for consideration. The bill seeks to break up the NLC as a central labour movement.