(image via Google Maps)At least 67 people were arrested by Nigerian police on Monday for celebrating a same-sex wedding.
According to reports, this was one of the largest mass detentions to target LGBTQ people in the African nation.
From AP News:
The “gay suspects” were arrested in southern Delta state’s Ekpan town at about 2 a.m. on Monday at an event where two of them were married, state police spokesman Bright Edafe told reporters. He said that homosexuality “will never be tolerated” in Nigeria.
Arrests of gay people are common in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, where gay people can face up to 14 years in prison under the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act.
Accomplices face 10 years in prison. Enacted in 2013, the law has been condemned locally and internationally though it is also supported by many in the country.
Nigeria is just one of a long list of African nations criminalizing homosexuality. Earlier this year, Uganda passed one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ laws in the world with some crimes being punishable by death.
Read the full report here.
More than 60 people detained after a gay wedding in southern Nigeria (from @AP) https://t.co/1DqEHwRrDQ
— Steve Rothaus (@SteveRothaus) August 29, 2023