BANDA ACEH, (Indonesia): Officials in Indonesia’s staunchly Islamic Aceh province publicly flogged an unmarried couple on Thursday (July 2), an AFP reporter witnessed, after the pair kissed in a video posted to social media.
The man and woman, whose ages were not disclosed, both received 21 cane lashes in a public park in the provincial capital Banda Aceh.
Dozens of onlookers watched the caning, with some calling for the officials who carried out the punishment to “whip stronger”, an AFP reporter saw.
The couple was reported to the authorities after they were seen kissing during a livestream on the video app TikTok, which prompted an investigation that led to their punishment, the city’s syariah police head Muhammad Rizal told reporters on July 2.
“They clearly violated the Islamic syariah,” Rizal said, adding that it was the first time in the religiously conservative province that people were punished for violating syariah law through social media.
Acts of physical intimacy such as kissing, hugging or touching between men and women who are not husband and wife are forbidden in Aceh, the only province in the South-east Asian country that applies a version of the Islamic law.
Amnesty International Indonesia spokesman Haeril Halim said the punishment for the couple was “a horrifying act of discrimination”.
“This shows that the Aceh Islamic Criminal Code (Qanun Jinayat) has expanded its reach to target peaceful expressions in the digital sphere with the caning of the young couple,” he said in a statement to AFP.
He called for the government to end the use of caning, adding that corporal punishment “has no place in a just and humane society”.
Another couple also received 27 lashes on July 2 for physical intimacy, while two men were caned 29 times and eight times, respectively, for gambling.
In May, the authorities flogged two men and two women 100 times for having sex outside of marriage. Five others were also caned at the time for violations including being in proximity of members of the opposite sex and alcohol consumption.
Caning, though not a legal form of punishment in Indonesia, retains strong support in Aceh.
Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, but officially recognises six religions as well as indigenous beliefs. - AFP
