.
1/15/14, "Nigeria's anti-gay laws: Homosexuals rounded up and beaten, rights groups claim," UK Independent, James Legge
"Police are hunting down and torturing
homosexuals in Nigeria, rights groups say, only days after President
Goodluck Jonathan signed new anti-gay measures into law.
Campaigners also allege that gay men were tortured into naming dozens of others, to be arrested.
Homosexual
acts were already illegal in Nigeria, but the Same Sex Marriage
Prohibition Act - passed with a conspicuous lack of announcement or
fanfare on Monday - means anyone belonging to a gay organisation can get
up to 10 years in jail, and anyone married to someone of the same sex
can get up to 14 years....
According
to the Associated Press news agency, accounts varied of how many
arrests were made in Nigeria's Bauchi state on Tuesday, and a local law
enforcement official denied that anyone was tortured.
Dorothy
Aken'Ova, executive director of Nigeria's International Centre for
Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights, said an undercover officer joined
a group being counseled on AIDS, pretending to be gay.
Aken'Ova,
whose organisation is helping provide legal services to the men, said
police then detained four gay men over the Christmas holidays and
tortured them until they named others allegedly belonging to a gay
organisation. She gave no details on what she called torture. She said
police have now arrested 38 men and are looking for 168 others.
The politics behind Nigeria's anti-gay law must be understood before Cameron reconsiders UK aid
Chairman Mustapha Baba Ilela of Bauchi state Shariah Commission,
which oversees regulation of Islamic law, said that 11 gay men have
been arrested over the past two weeks. He said community members helped
"fish out" the suspects and that "we are on the hunt for others."
He
said all 11 arrested signed confessions that they belonged to a gay
organisation, but that some of them retracted the statements in court.
He denied any force was involved, saying: "They have never been
tortured, they have never been beaten, they have never been
intimidated."...
(President) Jonathan has not publicly expressed his views on
homosexuality, but his spokesman, Reuben Abati, told the AP on Monday
night: "This is a law that is in line with the people's cultural and
religious inclination. So it is a law that is a reflection of the
beliefs and orientation of Nigerian people. ... Nigerians are pleased
with it.""
.
map from BBC, 1/15/14
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment