Nigerian Police have arrested 67 people attending a gay wedding in a hotel in the town of Uvwie, which is located in the southern state of Delta, since the Nigerian penal code classifies homosexuality as a crime that can carry prison terms of 14 years to life in prison. Police spokesman Bright Edafe explained that they will be prosecuted according to LGBT-related laws, after almost one hundred people were initially arrested.

“We arrested a hundred of thembut after the investigation, the number of suspects was reduced to 67. They will be prosecuted before the courts in accordance with the laws of the country,” he said, according to the Nigerian newspaper ‘Vanguard’.

In a live broadcast, Edafe described the gay wedding as something “evil” and blamed those who try to “copy” what happens in “the Western world.” “We are Nigerian and we must follow the culture of this country“He pointed out, according to his statements, collected by CNN. Behind him were the arrested, some of whom assured that they were not homosexual, but models or clothing designers.

The Police spokesman himself has shared several images of those arrested on his X (Twitter) profile: “The Delta State Police Department has arrested 67 people suspected of being gay at a hotel on August 28. They were in an alleged homosexual wedding between Daniel Pius and Maxwell Ohwonowho, at the Teebulus Hotel,” he wrote. “I have paraded them through the Ekpan Police Station“, he added later.

From Amnesty International they have called for the immediate release of those arrested as well as the end of what they have described as a “Witch hunt“. “These arrests violate various human rights and discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation or gender. In a society where corruption is rampant, the law prohibiting homosexual relations it is increasingly being used to harass, extort, and blackmail individuals by law enforcement officers and other members of the public. This is unacceptable”, they have denounced. Likewise, from the NGO they consider it “amazing” that a series of people have been arrested for their alleged homosexuality —when many have said that they are models or artists— for the “mere fact of dressing or combing their hair with style” and that sitting down as a couple can take on criminal proportions.

In total, 69 countries in the world still criminalize homosexuality. In Nigeria, specifically, homosexuality is punishable by up to 14 years in prison or death penalty under state Sharia laws – not in the case of Delta state. The law that prohibits gay marriage in the country affects not only people who marry being of the same sex, but also those who witness, help or incite a same-sex marriage, as well as societies, clubs or organizations that support it. and, in general, almost any public display of homosexuality.