Aug 05, 2005  |  By: ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG  | COMMENTS     

Twenty-two members of Congress this week asked the Nigerian president to intervene in a case involving a 50-year-old man from Kano who was sentenced to death by stoning after he admitted to a judge that he had sex with another man.

The international community first learned about the case when Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur, stumbled across the man while he was conducting interviews in a Nigerian prison in June.

Alston declined to comment for this story, but in an e-mail to the Blade, he said that appeals in the man’s case are underway and that he fears that international attention could jeopardize the man’s release.

Cary Alan Johnson, senior Africa specialist with the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, said the group is also being cautious and has not asked for any action to be taken, but instead is working with local Nigerian activists to learn how best to respond to the situation.

“[Action] might cause those courts to be offended by the tone, to move into a defensive position,” Johnson said. “It could compromise the appeals process to bring about the repeal of the death sentence.”

According to the IGLHRC, the man, after being accused by a neighbor, was tried for having sex with another man in a Shari’a, or strict Muslim, court. The court dismissed the case for lack of evidence.

After the trial was over, the judge asked the man if he had ever had sex with another man. When the man said yes, the judge then sentenced him to death by stoning, according to the IGLHRC. Recently, two more men were arrested in another northern state for homosexuality. Human rights advocates are concerned that their cases will follow a similar path as the Kano case.

“[W]e believe that the execution by stoning or by any other means of any individual for private, adult consensual sexual activity is grossly inhumane,” the congressional representatives’ letter stated. The letter was signed by, among others, gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.).

Homosexuality outlawed
About six years ago, after decades of civil war and unrest, Nigeria transformed itself from military to civilian rule. In 2000, northern states began introducing Muslim law. Twelve of Nigeria’s 36 states operate under Muslim law.

Homosexuality is outlawed in both the Nigerian penal code and in Muslim law. However, in northern states under Muslim law the punishment can be death; in the civil penal code homosexuality can carry up to a 14-year prison sentence.

Northern states, at times, use Shari’a law as a “political football” to demonstrate autonomy from the federal government, according to Scott Long, director of Human Rights Watch’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Program. Rather than imposing Muslim law on all of the states’ inhabitants, citizens should be able to opt out for civil law, he said.

“We have to say this is not about religion or culture,” he said. “They are using religion and culture for political purposes.”

Often charges of homosexuality in Nigeria are based on neighbors’ accusations or rumors, human rights advocates said. The numbers of people arrested and sentenced for sodomy are unknown, Johnson said. Even local Nigerian activists were unaware of the case involving the man from Kano, he noted.

But it is not just the threat of arrest and punishment that haunts gay and lesbian Nigerians. The criminalization of homosexuality puts them at constant risk of being exploited or discriminated against in employment, housing or education, Johnson said.

“It can form a backdrop for extortion, blackmail, harassment by police [and] impunity from being dismissed by your job,” he said.

Christopher Nugent, a Washington, D.C., attorney who specializes in those seeking asylum based on sexual orientation, said that in many Muslim countries, accusations of homosexuality are often used as retaliation and revenge.

Some Nigerian gays have tried to gain asylum in the United States based on their countries’ persecution of homosexuals. Gaining asylum is always a difficult process but it can be more onerous for Nigerians, Nugent said. Nigerian asylum seekers are put under an even greater microscope because immigrants from the country have a reputation of providing fraudulent documents, explained Nugent.

Proving persecution is now even harder under the 2005 Real ID Act, which requires those seeking asylum to show all available documentation, such as police reports, trial records and medical records, according to Nugent. Prior to this act, the asylum seekers’ testimony, coupled with expert witnesses, was often sufficient to prove persecution, Nugent ...