Kidnapped girls' video authentic

Nigerian authorities have verified the authenticity of the video of kidnapped girls shown wearing Islamic veils and singing Quranic verses under the guns of their captors.

Officials say 54 of the girls had been identified by relatives, teachers and classmates who watched the video late Tuesday.

The Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram captured nearly 300 schoolgirls on April 15 from their school in remote northeast Nigeria.
There is a growing international movement to win the freedom of the girls before they are sold into slavery or married off to fighters, or worse.

In Washington, human rights attorney Emmanuel Ogebe said Boko Haram continues to try to force Christians to convert to Islam. Jews and Muslims considered apostates are also tar-geted. Ogebe, a panelist on a Hudson Institute forum, said the extremists captured the girls because men have left remote towns with the belief that women and girls would not be harmed.
A teen, Deborah Peters, says her father was killed in 2011 in the same village as the abductions. Peters, now a student in the United States, says her father, a pastor, was slain because he wouldn't renounce his faith. Her brother was also gunned down as she watched.