The Nigerian Police have arrested 21 young men under the age of 25 for allegedly belonging to a gay cult.
The men were arrested in Ibadan last week after allegedly being caught at a birthday party with about 122 condoms.
The
Scoopng is reporting that although the organizer of the event claimed
that it was just a birthday party, the policemen accused them of holding
an initiation into an ‘evil gay cult’ after the discovery of 122
condoms and the absence of females.
The policemen said that they had received a tip claiming that the occupants of the room were gay.
The police also said that the absence of females corroborated with the claim of their informant that it was indeed a gay cult.
A
human rights organisation, The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIER) has
since spoken out against the arrest of the young men after receiving a
call on May 10, 2015.
“At the point of arrest,
the young men were physically assaulted and treated in a manner
unbecoming of any legal process: they were photographed in their
underwear, made to write statements under duress and locked up in an
overcrowded cell,” the spokesman of the organization said.
The
police initially refused to grant the young men bail and transfer of
the case to the state courts until the intervention of a lawyer from the
International Center for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights
(INCRESE).
They were given different bail notices from N5,000 to N10,000. The organiser of the party had to pay N21,000.
In
spite of the way they were treated, the arrested young men refused to
appeal against the treatment on order to prevent being branded as gay.
Reports
revealed that 11 out of the 21 had been bailed by their family and
friends, while 10 were left in detention. INCRESE however provided the
fund for bail for the remaining 10 detainees and took them to a safe
house.
The 21 claimed that the police further
extorted money from each of them when they all returned to the police
station on May 14, 2015 before they were allowed to leave.
“It
is obvious that there is a need to create more public awareness and the
need for victims to take up cases with solid support of the movement.
Without this, cases like this will continue to occur with limited or no
option for proper adjudication for justice”, the TIER spokesman said.
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