Last Monday, the 28th, Nigerian police arrested more than 200 people who were at a gay wedding. The detention of these people was considered the biggest in recent years against the LGBTQIAPN+ community.
A police spokesman in the state of Delta do Sul told reporters that 67 people will be prosecuted for “allegedly conducting and attending a same-sex marriage ceremony.”
Same-sex relationships are considered a crime in Nigeria and the country’s penal code approves a sentence of up to 14 years in prison for people convicted of entering into an LGBTQIANP+ civil union.
Last Tuesday, the 29th, a police officer described the event as “malignant” and stated that “We cannot copy the western world. We are Nigeria and we must follow the culture of this country”.
Amnesty International Nigeria condemned the situation and termed it as “a witch hunt” and turned to the Delta state police to release detainees who were “arrested and presented to the media”.
“In a society where corruption is rampant, the law prohibiting same-sex relationships is increasingly used to harass, extort and blackmail people by law enforcement officials and other members of the public. This is unacceptable”, wrote the human rights group on the web.
In a statement, the police said that a recording of the site pointed out the alleged prohibited substances: “The site of the illicit event was searched and the following items were recovered from the site: a bottle of codeine, three glasses of refined Canadian cannabis, five sachets of SK, a sachet of tramadol, four pills of the drug molly, a shredder, and dresses gay marriage ceremonies”.
Source: Maxima
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