If you’re gay and looking to travel, you might want to leave Nigeria off your list of go-to locations. Turns out, it’s not the most gay-friendly place in the world, to the point where just being gay will earn you a 14-year jail sentence.
Not one to let shit like this slide, pro-gay hackers have responded by setting their sights on the Nigerian government’s federal webpage. According to The Street Journal, a hacker by the name of Paddy Hack took down the website nigeria.gov.ng and has made demands that the anti-gay law be striken down . . . or else.
The attack came from Paddyhack, who wrote on the site that “nobody should live in fear of being jailed when their action is loving another consenting adult, regardless of gender.” The President was asked to “veto or renounce the bill” within 72 hours.
Issuing a threat after, the hackers stated on the website that “failure to follow our order will unleash a torrent of fury aimed directly at the direction of your administration, starting with some startling but unsurprising evidence of corruption in your ranks.”
Here’s what I don’t understand: if your country is advanced enough to embrace the internet and have your own page, how do you not have Google? Has it never occurred to you to look up the numerous scientific studies that state homosexuality is natural before you write laws criminalizing it? You need more citations to edit a Wikipedia page than you do a federal law, and that’s fucking crazy.
We’re living in an age where everyone walks around with a tiny super-computer in their pocket. It’s a world where everyone has their own personal copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on hand, and yet no one bothers using it. I’m not saying you need to double-check everything you say, but if you’re going to treat an entire group of people as second-class citizens without evidence, the only reason behind it is willful ignorance.
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