Sixty-nine individuals arrested after Nigerian police raided an alleged homosexual marriage ceremony have been launched on bail.
They had been arrested final month in one of many largest mass detentions concentrating on homosexuality in Nigeria, the place homosexual weddings are unlawful.
A court docket in Warri, Delta state, dominated on Tuesday that these being held could be freed after every posting 500,000 naira (£520) bail. State prosecutors opposed the transfer.
The detainees, who didn’t seem in court docket, had been additionally ordered to signal a register as soon as a month till their subsequent listening to, in response to their lawyer Ochuko Ohimor.
The arrests occurred after a tip-off in a police interrogation of somebody who allegedly knew in regards to the occasion, police mentioned.
Officers stormed a resort in Ekpan the place the alleged homosexual marriage ceremony was being held and initially arrested 200 individuals.
Police spokesman Edafe Bright mentioned on the time: “The policemen chased and arrested… suspects both male and female for allegedly conducting and attending a same-sex wedding ceremony.”
The spokesman added that homosexuality “will never be tolerated” in Nigeria.
Amnesty International’s Nigeria workplace condemned the arrests and referred to as for “an immediate end to this witch hunt”.
Read extra:
Rishi Sunak apologises to LGBT veterans
Barbie film banned in Kuwait
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
Nigeria introduced in an anti-gay legislation in 2014 and customarily sees homosexuality as immoral on cultural and spiritual grounds. Some different nations in Africa additionally share these views.
The laws in Nigeria features a jail time period of as much as 14 years for these convicted below the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, and bans homosexual marriage, same-sex relationships, and membership of homosexual rights teams.
Cross-dressing isn’t unlawful however tends to not be socially acceptable.
Uganda’s dying penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’
In May, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni signed into legislation anti-gay laws supported by many within the East African nation however condemned by rights activists.
The invoice doesn’t criminalise those that determine as LGBTQ+, however prescribes the dying penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”.
This is outlined as circumstances of sexual relations involving individuals contaminated with HIV, in addition to with minors and different classes of susceptible individuals.
Someone convicted of “attempted aggravated homosexuality” may be imprisoned for as much as 14 years.
Source: information.sky.com”