CRIME&PUNISHMENT: Four Men Whipped In Court For Gay Sex

Four young men were convicted of gay sex and whipped publicly as punishment in an Islamic court in Bauchi, a human rights activist said.Man, arrested for alleged immoral behaviour, appear before an Islamic sharia court in Bauchi, capital of the northern Nigerian state, 21 August, 2007. By Pius Utomi Ekpei (AFP/File)The men, aged between 20 and 22, were sentenced and punished on Thursday to 15 strokes. They also face a year's imprisonment if they cannot pay a fine ofN19,700.The hearings in Bauchi city had been delayed from January, whena crowd tried to stone the accused men outside the courtand demanded the judge pass the death sentence.Dorothy Aken'Ova, the convenor of the Coalition for the Defence of Sexual Rights Network, said the men had to prostrate themselves on the floor of the court to be whipped on their bottoms.She also said the men should not have been convicted because their confessions were forced through beatings.Aken'Ova disclosed that the families of the four men refused legal representation as they were embarrassed by the stigma attached to homosexuality, which many in Nigeria consider an evil imported from the West.Same-sex marriage and civil unions in Nigeria were bannedin January.Homosexuality was already banned under sharia Islamic law, which exists alongside state and federal laws in the majority Muslim north of Nigeria and carries the death sentence.The judge said he was lenient because the men had promised that the homosexual acts occurred in the past and that they had since changed their ways, according to Aken'Ova.