EU SLAMS NIGERIA’S ANTI-GAY LAW

The European Parliament on Thursday passed a resolution calling on Nigeria to abandon its proposed controversial anti-gay law.

The resolution, which received a 61-24 vote, also deals with other human rights abuses in Nigeria, including the country’s death penalty, Sharia law trials, and the exploitation of children.

Resolution B6-105 (EPP-DE) calls on the Nigerian Parliament “not to adopt the proposed ‘Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act’ in its current form, since it contains infringements of the basic human rights of freedom of expression and opinion, in particular when it envisages a five-year prison sentence for anyone involved publicly or privately in positive representation of or advocacy for same sex relationships.”

Under the Nigerian bill, a penalty of five years imprisonment will be imposed on any person who “goes through the ceremony of marriage with a person of the same sex,” or who “performs, witnesses, aids or abets the ceremony of same sex marriage,” or who “is involved in the registration of gay clubs, societies and organisations, sustenance, procession or meetings, publicity and public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly in public and in private.”

Gay sex is already illegal in Nigeria, punishable by death in the Islamic northern part of the country.