Nigerian police arrested 67 people at the same location, the reason? They celebrated a gay wedding and this case becomes one of the largest mass arrests related to the LGBT community in history.
It all happened at 2am in Ekpan, a southern state of Nigeria. Police spokesman Bright Edafe said the “homosexual suspects” were celebrating a wedding between two men and that homosexuality “is never tolerated in Nigeria”.
Relationships between two men and two women are illegal in Nigeria and those who are “discovered” can face up to 14 years in prison.
In this case, “the accomplices”, i.e. the people who took part in the wedding, also face ten years in prison.
There were more than 200 guests at the wedding, but police narrowed the list down to 67
The truth is that there were more than 200 people present at the gay wedding, all of whom were arrested. Then they had to parade to the police station one by one, and there the police reduced the group to 67.
According to which criteria did you make your choice? It’s not entirely clear, but some people said they happened to be at the gay wedding or were just guests of the hotel where the ceremony was taking place.
“The surprising thing was that we saw two suspects and there is a video recording of them performing their wedding ceremony,” the spokesman told local media. “We are in Africa and we are in Nigeria. We cannot copy the western world because we do not have the same culture.
Nigeria is among the growing list of African countries whose laws violate the fundamental rights of the LGBT community.
For example, Uganda recently signed a law that punishes homosexual marriage not only with prison but in some cases with the death penalty.
