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"where love is illegal"

Buje (not his real name), Nigeria. April 25, 2014. Buje spent more than 40 days in prison after being taken from his home by a vigilante group aligned to the Bauchi City Shar'ia Courts in December 2013. After guards beat him in prison with electric cables, Buje confessed to committing homosexual acts. They lashed him 15 times with a horsewhip as punishment. He says his family told him: “God should take your life away so that everyone will have peace because you have caused such shame to our family.” Since Nigeria’s president signed a harsh law criminalizing same-sex relationships in Jan. 2014, arrests of gay people have multiplied and advocates have been forced to go underground or seek asylum overseas.