Sixty-nine individuals arrested after Nigerian police raided an alleged homosexual marriage ceremony have been launched on bail.
They have been arrested final month in one of many greatest mass detentions focusing on homosexuality in Nigeria, the place homosexual weddings are unlawful.
A court docket in Warri, Delta state, dominated on Tuesday that these being held can be freed after every posting 500,000 naira (£520) bail. State prosecutors opposed the transfer.
The detainees, who didn’t seem in court docket, have been additionally ordered to signal a register as soon as a month till their subsequent listening to, in line with 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 lodge in Ekpan the place the alleged homosexual marriage ceremony was being held and initially arrested 200 individuals.
Police spokesman Edafe Brilliant mentioned on the time: “The policemen chased and arrested… suspects each female and male for allegedly conducting and attending a same-sex marriage ceremony ceremony.”
The spokesman added that homosexuality “won’t ever be tolerated” in Nigeria.
Amnesty Worldwide’s Nigeria workplace condemned the arrests and referred to as for “a right away finish to this witch hunt”.
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Nigeria introduced in an anti-gay legislation in 2014 and customarily sees homosexuality as immoral on cultural and non secular grounds. Another international locations in Africa additionally share these views.
The laws in Nigeria features a jail time period of as much as 14 years for these convicted underneath the Identical Intercourse Marriage Prohibition Act, and bans homosexual marriage, same-sex relationships, and membership of homosexual rights teams.
Cross-dressing is just not unlawful however tends to not be socially acceptable.
Uganda’s loss of life penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’
In Might, 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 death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”.
That is outlined as {cases} of sexual relations involving individuals contaminated with HIV, in addition to with minors and different classes of susceptible individuals.
Somebody convicted of “tried aggravated homosexuality” might be imprisoned for as much as 14 years.