New York City: Activists arrested outside Nigerian consulate

Protest part of global day of action against anti-gay law

Police arrested nine activists who were impeding traffic as they participated in a protest against Nigeria’s anti-gay law outside the African country’s consulate in New York City, BuzzFeed reports.

The nine are linked to the HIV-advocacy group Housing Works.

About 400 people turned out for the noon protest, one of several staged as part of a global day of action against the measure to which President Goodluck Jonathan gave his assent. Protests were organized in Washington, DC; Stockholm, Sweden; Zimbabwe; London, England; Brussels, Belgium; and Nigeria, 76crimes.com says.

Four men who were found guilty of breaking the recently enacted law were subjected to a public whipping in an Islamic court in Nigeria’s north. There are reports that dozens of people have been arrested in states in both the north and south of the country.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

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