Nigeria 'Gay Wedding' Bust Leads To Charges
Prosecutors in the northern Nigeria state of Kaduna have charged
a group of 53 people with conspiring to celebrate a gay wedding.
The accused, arrested last Saturday, have denied the
allegations, with their lawyers saying they were illegally detained.
The court released the group on bail and the case was remanded
to 8 May.
Homosexual acts are banned in socially conservative Nigeria and
are punishable by up to 14 years in jail.
During a court appearance in Chediya-Zaria, the group pleaded
not guilty to charges of conspiracy, unlawful assembly and belonging to an
unlawful society.
Defence lawyer Yunusa Umar said most of the accused were
students and had been illegally detained for more than 24 hours, the local
Premium Times newspaper reported.
Nigeria has an influential Christian evangelical movement in the
south and strong support for Islamic law in the north, both of which oppose
homosexuality.
In January 2014, the Hisbah, or Islamic police, in Bauchi state
raided several locations and arrested about a dozen men accused of sodomy acts.
Some of the men later appeared before a Sharia court for a bail
hearing and an angry crowd gathered outside, demanding swift and severe
punishment.
Stones were thrown at the court and the hearing was halted.
Police had to shoot in the air to disperse the mob and get the
suspects back to prison safely, though there they are also vulnerable.
The ban on homosexuality, brought into effect in 2014, is used
by some police officers and members of the public to legitimise abuses against
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, according to Human Rights
Watch (HRW).
"Extortion, mob violence, arbitrary arrest, torture in
detention, and physical and sexual violence" are common against people
suspected of homosexual activities
Source ;BBC
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