It's a bare cop!

A Brazilian policeman who was sacked after posing naked for a gay magazine is appealing against his dismissal on the grounds of discrimination.

He's asked civil rights groups to help him regain his job as a member of an elite police unit which specialised in kidnappings.

The officer, Marcelo Clua, from the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte had also been moonlighting as an erotic dancer in nightclubs, which is classed as insubordination under police rules.

The BBC correspondent in Sao Paulo says it's normal for Brazil's poorly paid police to take second jobs and Officer Clua's choice was by no means unusual in a country where several well-known footballers have posed for gay magazines.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service