GAY ARRESTS ACROSS NIGERIA!

 

Arrests have spread across Nigeria as dozens more people perceived to be gay have been rounded up and questioned, activists said Friday, describing another wave of police attention unleashed by a wide-ranging new anti-gay law.In the last few days, more than 30 people have been arrested, with an increasing number coming from the west African country's Christian southern states. Until Goodluck Jonathan signed the law more than a week ago, prosecution of gay people had largely been centred on the predominantly Muslim north, where gays have long been punished under Shariah law.


"The arrests are all over. It's no longer just in the north,'' said Ifeanyi Kelly Orazulike, executive director of the Nigeria-based International Center for Advocacy on Right to Health. "Police are not telling us what the charges are, and people are scared.''

He said that at this point, some of those arrested may have been released, but not without being forced to give names of others who may eventually be implicated.

Nigeria's more than 160 million people are almost equally divided between the north and mainly Christian south, with a widespread condemnation of homosexuality throughout the country. Gay people can get lynched and beaten to death, or legally executed by stoning for the offence under the Islamic Shariah law that prevails in nine of its 36 states.

Sodomy was already illegal, but the bill signed into law Jan. 7 bans all gay associations and gay marriage, with penalties of up to 14 years' imprisonment for marriage. Arrests had been made before, but not at this magnitude, Orazulike said.

"It's obviously the law,'' he said. "People want to leave and you don't blame them. They are asking us about the exit choices.''

Huffingtonpost Canada.