Dec. 20 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Islamic Police of Nigeria has arrested about twenty people who tried to attend a wedding between two people of the same sex in the city of Kano, in the north of the country, in whose penal code homosexuality is classified as a crime that can lead to jail terms of 14 years to life.
The event took place on Sunday in Kano, a Muslim-majority city, where this Islamic Police, known as Hisbah, enforces a strict moral code. His spokesman, Lawal Ibrahim Fagge, has reported that the fifteen men and four women were arrested before the alleged link was held.
Fagge has told the BBC that there is no intention to punish these people, but rather to offer them “advice” to change their lifestyle. “We will explore the path of change before accusing them,” she said. So far, the Kano courts have not convicted anyone for homosexual acts.
The detainees were all around twenty years old, as well as the couple who was to be married, who managed to escape, said the Hisbah’s general commander, Sheikh Harun Muhammad Ibn Sina, who said that the organizer of the event is collaborating to be able to find them, as reported by the Nigerian newspaper ‘The Guardian’.
Persecution and harassment of the gay community in Nigeria is not only exclusive to the northern, Muslim-majority regions, but also in the south, where Christianity is more common. Groups defending rights and freedoms have constantly denounced this situation. However, the country’s ultra-conservative morale hampers any kind of progress.