Getting tough on violators


Unusual: A violator wearing a paper necklace which reads ‘I promise to wear face mask’ while standing in a street amid the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in Bengkulu. — AFP

Indonesian officials are forcing social distancing violators to recite Quranic verses, stay in “haunted” houses and submit to public shaming on social media as the country battles to contain surging coronavirus infections.

The South-East Asian archipelago began deploying around 340,000 troops across two dozen cities to oversee enforcement of measures aimed at halting transmission of the disease, such as wearing facemasks in public.

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