The police in Nigeria have arrested over 60 individuals who have been in attendance at what the authorities claimed was a same-sex marriage ceremony, reinforcing a crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. individuals in Africa’s most populous nation.
The police additionally broadcast the identities of a few of these arrested on social media and inspired members of the general public to assist “uphold the moral standards of the society” by offering related data — strikes that raised concern that those that attended the occasion could be subjected to stigma or violence.
Under a 2014 legislation, anybody coming into a same-sex marriage or civil union in Nigeria may be imprisoned for as much as 14 years. Those who administer or witness such a ceremony can resist 10 years in jail. At the time it was enacted, the U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, stated the legislation violated fundamental human rights protections.
Bright Edafe, a police spokesman in Delta State in southern Nigeria, stated the arrests have been an indication that the nation was going to make use of an iron fist in opposition to homosexual unions.
“We are in Africa, and we are in Nigeria. We cannot copy the Western world, because we don’t have the same culture,” he stated at a news convention on Tuesday in entrance of the handfuls who have been arrested.
Same-sex weddings are uncommon in Nigeria, with many such {couples} opting to carry their ceremonies in nations the place it’s authorized to take action, Mr. Edafe stated in a phone interview. “It is not common, and we don’t even want to get to that level,” he stated. “That is why we are taking the action we are taking now.”
In a video that the Nigerian police printed on Facebook on Tuesday, a type of charged advised reporters that he was sporting a skirt and crop high for a style present. Asked whether or not he was homosexual, he stated that he was not and that the occasion had been a celebration slightly than a marriage ceremony.
In 2020, a case in Lagos by which 47 males had been charged with public shows of affection with members of similar intercourse was dismissed, with the choose citing prosecutors’ failure to seem in court docket and name witnesses.
The newest arrests occurred after law enforcement officials raided the Teebilos Hotel in Warri, a metropolis in southern Nigeria.
The police stated on X, the social platform previously generally known as Twitter, that on Sunday night time they’d stopped an individual whom they recognized as “a male cross-dresser” who stated that he was an actor and that he belonged to “a certain gay club.” He stated that he was going to a same-sex marriage ceremony, the police wrote.
In a video that the police printed on the social media platform, a pair — one sporting a white gown with a veil and one in a white go well with — stood beside a swimming pool surrounded by visitors and balloons as a grasp of ceremonies launched a performer on a stage.
Mr. Edafe stated in a phone interview that the these arrested have been being held and that they could be charged on the finish of an investigation. It was not instantly clear who was legally representing these in custody.
Isa Sanusi, Amnesty International’s nation director for Nigeria, stated that homophobia had been a difficulty within the nation even earlier than the 2014 legislation was handed, however that the laws had develop into a technique to put added stress on L.G.B.T.Q. individuals.
“That law emboldened homophobia,” he stated. “It’s given people the ground to carry out human rights violations in Nigeria.”
Mr. Sanusa additionally denounced the police’s resolution to publish photographs and movies of these arrested on the gathering, a transfer that he stated put these accused vulnerable to violence.
“This parading like yesterday,” he stated, “is a complete violation of human rights.”
Many of the roughly 60 nations around the globe that criminalize homosexuality are in Africa, and in recent times some have handed or vowed to introduce harsher penalties for same-sex relations.
In Uganda, a draconian legislation handed in May consists of the demise penalty for some sorts of gay acts, and life imprisonment for anybody who engages in homosexual intercourse. Two males within the nation have been charged with “aggravated homosexuality” this summer season, against the law punishable by demise.
Ismail Alfa Abdulrahim contributed reporting from Maiduguri, Nigeria.
Source: www.nytimes.com