The Nigerian police arrested not less than 67 individuals after it raided a supposedly ‘homosexual marriage ceremony’. The tipoff in regards to the ceremony got here throughout police interrogation on August 27 of a male cross-dresser, who was dressed as a feminine, Delta police spokesman Edafe Vivid stated in a press release late on Tuesday, a Reuters report stated.
A minimum of 200 individuals have been stated to be attending the occasion and 67 of them have been being investigated. Homosexuals in Nigeria can resist 14 years in jail below the Identical-Intercourse Marriage Prohibition Act. The regulation got here into drive below former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014.
Amnesty Worldwide’s Nigeria workplace condemned the arrests and known as for “an instantaneous finish to this witch-hunt.”
“In a society the place corruption is rampant, this (same-sex) regulation banning same-sex relationships is more and more getting used for harassment, extortion and blackmail of individuals,” Isa Sanusi, the organisation’s director in Nigeria, informed The Related Press.
“We’re in Africa and we’re in Nigeria. We can’t copy the Western world as a result of we don’t have the identical tradition,” state police spokesman Vivid Edafe stated. Efforts are underway to arrest those that fled the scene, he added.
One of many arrested had stated that he was on the resort for an additional engagement and never the marriage. The resort was completely searched. The newest African nation to criminalise same-sex relations is Uganda.
