Prosecutors in the northern Nigeria
state of Kaduna have charged a group of 53 people with conspiring to
celebrate a gay wedding.
The accused, arrested last Saturday, have denied the allegations, with their lawyers saying they were illegally detained.
The court released the group on bail and the case was remanded to 8 May.
Homosexual acts are banned in socially conservative Nigeria and are punishable by up to 14 years in jail.
During a court appearance in Chediya-Zaria, the group pleaded not
guilty to charges of conspiracy, unlawful assembly and belonging to an
unlawful society.
Defence lawyer Yunusa Umar said most of the
accused were students and had been illegally detained for more than 24
hours, the local Premium Times newspaper reported.
Gay rights
campaigners who have been in touch with people involved in the case told
the BBC's Stephanie Hegarty in Lagos the accused were arrested at a
birthday party, not a wedding.
Nigeria has an influential Christian evangelical movement in the
south and strong support for Islamic law in the north, both of which
oppose homosexuality.
In January 2014, the Hisbah, or Islamic
police, in Bauchi state raided several locations and arrested about a
dozen men accused of sodomy acts.
Some of the men later appeared
before a Sharia court for a bail hearing and an angry crowd gathered
outside, demanding swift and severe punishment.
Stones were thrown at the court and the hearing was halted.
Police
had to shoot in the air to disperse the mob and get the suspects back
to prison safely, though there they are also vulnerable.
The ban
on homosexuality, brought into effect in 2014, is used by some police
officers and members of the public to legitimise abuses against lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, according to Human Rights
Watch (HRW).
"Extortion, mob violence, arbitrary arrest, torture
in detention, and physical and sexual violence" are common against
people suspected of homosexual activities, HRW said in a 2016 report.
No comments: