Four men whipped in Nigeria court after being convicted of gay sex

Four young men have been convicted of gay sex and whipped publicly as punishment in an Islamic court in northern Nigeria, a human rights activist said.

The four were among dozens caught in a wave of arrests after Nigeria strengthened its criminal penalties for homosexuality with the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act in January.

Dorothy Aken'Ova, of the Coalition for the Defence of Sexual Rights Network, said the men could face further violence in prison if human rights organisations do not come up with a fine of 20,000 naira (£72) each meted out on Thursday by a judge in Bauchi city.

The four were sentenced to 15 strokes plus a year's imprisonment if they cannot pay the fine.

Aken'Ova said the men, aged between 20 and 22, should not have been convicted because their confessions had been forced by law agents who beat them.

She said they had to prostrate themselves on the floor of the court to be whipped on their backsides.

The men's families, mainly subsistence farmers in rural areas where everyone knows everyone else, refused legal representation because they preferred to negotiate with the judge, said Aken'Ova. She said the families were embarrassed by the stigma attached to homosexuality, which many highly religious Nigerians consider an evil imported from the west.

The hearings in Bauchi city, capital of the state of the same name, had been delayed from January, when a crowd tried to stone the accused men outside the court and demanded the judge pass the death sentence. Security officials had to fire into the air to save the men and disperse the crowd.

Under sharia law in some north Nigerian states, homosexual people can be sentenced to death by stoning or lethal injection, though that sentence has never been enforced.

On Thursday, the judge said he had been lenient because the men had promised that the homosexual acts occurred in the past and that they had since changed their ways, Aken'Ova said.