Since suddenly people care about Nigeria.

‘Cross-dressers’ in Nigeria court

The trial of 18 men accused of dressing up as women has started in a Sharia court in northern Nigeria.

The men were arrested last year in a hotel room in the city of Bauchi.

Prosecutors read out a letter from New York based Human Rights Watch calling for the court to respect the men’s right to “free association”.

The men were originally accused of sodomy, which could lead to the death penalty under Sharia, but the charges were reduced.

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Being a Dan Daudu, however, did not necessarily say much about a person’s sexual preferences, our correspondent says.

But eight years ago Nigeria’s northern states reintroduced some of the harsher penalties of Islamic law which had been removed under colonialism.

It was a response by politicians to a wave of popular discontent in the Islamic north against political corruption and social injustice.

This new tougher Sharia has largely failed to end such problems but there is now, perhaps, more of a willingness to target groups who appear to behave in ways that run counter to today’s more puritan practice of Islam, our correspondent says.

Prosecutor Yusuf Adamu said HRW was “grossly misinformed” about the case and invited a representative of the organisation to attend the trial.