Authorities in Indonesia’s deeply Islamic province of Aceh publicly flogged an unmarried couple on Thursday, an AFP journalist noted, after images appeared on social media where the couple appeared to be hugging and kissing.
The man and woman, whose ages were not disclosed, were each caned 21 times in a public park in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital.
AFP
Dozens of onlookers witnessed the flogging, some urging the agents responsible for applying the punishment to “hit harder,” noted an AFP journalist.
AFP
The couple was reported to authorities after displaying their physical intimacy live on the video app TikTok, triggering an investigation that led to the punishment, the city’s sharia police chief, Muhammad Rizal, told reporters on Thursday.
“They clearly violated Islamic Sharia law,” Rizal said, adding that it was the first time in this religiously conservative province that people had been punished for breaking Islamic law through social media.
Acts of physical intimacy such as kissing, hugging or touching between a man and a woman who are not husband and wife are prohibited in Aceh, the only province in the Southeast Asian country to apply a strict version of Islamic law.
Amnesty International Indonesia spokesperson Haeril Halim said the punishment inflicted on the couple constituted “an appalling act of discrimination”.
“This shows that the Aceh Islamic Penal Code (Qanun Jinayat) has expanded its reach to target peaceful expressions in the digital sphere, with the flogging of this young couple,” he said in a statement sent to AFP.
He called on the government to end the use of flogging, adding that corporal punishment “has no place in a just and humane society.”
Another couple also received 27 strokes of the cane for physical intimacy, while two men received 29 and eight strokes of the cane respectively for gambling.
In May, authorities gave two men and two women 100 strokes of the cane for having sex outside of marriage. Five other people were then also flogged for offenses such as being near members of the opposite sex and drinking alcohol.
Flogging, while not a legal punishment in Indonesia, remains widely supported in Aceh.
Indonesia is the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world, but it officially recognizes six religions as well as indigenous beliefs.
