The West African country of Niger has arrested at least 16 people after introducing \u200bprison sentences and fines for same-sex sexual acts, \u200ca judicial source told Reuters.<\/p>\n
The source said that high-ranking officials working for customs and police forces as well \u200bas several civilians had been arrested.<\/p>\n
The official gazette \u200bdated March 27 says that sexual relations \u2060with a person of the same sex are \u200bpunishable by prison terms of five to 10 years \u200band fines of 10 million to 100 million CFA francs ($18,000 to $180,000).<\/p>\n
“The operation is ongoing. It will target certain facilities \u200bwhere people of the same sex live together,” \u200bthe source said, referring to army barracks and college campuses.<\/p>\n
According to \u200cthe \u2060document seen by Reuters, people found to be in a same-sex marriage could receive prison sentences of 10 to 20 years.<\/p>\n
People operating LGBTQ organisations will \u200bbe fined \u200b50 million \u2060to 500 million CFA francs, the document says.<\/p>\n
A government spokesperson did not reply \u200bto a request for comment.<\/p>\n
West African \u200bcountries including \u2060Senegal and Burkina Faso have passed anti-LGBTQ legislation in recent months. In Niger, the law previously banned \u2060same-sex \u200bmarriage but did not include \u200bpenalties for same-sex relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The West African country of Niger has arrested at least 16 people after introducing \u200bprison sentences and fines for same-sex sexual acts, \u200ca judicial source told Reuters. The source said that high-ranking officials working for customs and police forces as well \u200bas several civilians had been arrested. The official gazette \u200bdated March 27 says that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,34,27],"tags":[383],"class_list":["post-21305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-society","category-west-africa","tag-niger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21306,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21305\/revisions\/21306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}