Four men were among dozens arrested in a wave of arrests after Nigeria strengthened its anti-gay laws in January [2014].<\/i><\/p>\n
Four young men have been convicted of gay sex and whipped\u00a0publicly as punishment in an Islamic court in northern Nigeria, according to a human rights activist.<\/p>\n
The four were sentenced and punished on Thursday [6 Mar 2014] to 15 strokes. They also face a year’s\u00a0imprisonment if they cannot pay a fine of $120.<\/p>\n
The men, aged between 20 and 22, should not have been\u00a0convicted because their confessions were forced through beatings, said\u00a0Dorothy Aken’Ova, the convenor\u00a0of the Coalition for the Defence of Sexual Rights Network.<\/p>\n
She said they had to prostrate themselves on the floor of the court to be\u00a0whipped on their bottoms.<\/p>\n
Aken’Ova said the families refused an offer of legal representation\u00a0and were embarrassed by the stigma\u00a0attached to homosexuality, which many highly religious Nigerians consider an\u00a0evil imported from the West.<\/p>\n
The hearings in Bauchi city, the capital of the state of the same name, had\u00a0been delayed from January, when a crowd tried to stone the accused men\u00a0outside the court and demanded the judge pass the death sentence.<\/p>\n
Security\u00a0officials had to fire into the air to save the men and disperse the crowd.<\/p>\n
Under Islamic law in some north Nigerian states, homosexuals can be\u00a0sentenced to death by stoning or lethal injection, though that sentence has\u00a0never been enforced.<\/p>\n
The judge said he was lenient because the men had promised\u00a0that the homosexual acts occurred in the past and that they had since changed\u00a0their ways, according to Aken’Ova.<\/p>\n
The four were among dozens caught in a wave of arrests after Nigeria\u00a0strengthened its criminal penalties for homosexuality with the new Same Sex\u00a0Marriage Prohibition Act in January.<\/p>\n