100 Lashes in Aceh

 Eleven people were publicly caned Thursday in Indonesia’s Aceh province after Islamic courts convicted them of violating the region’s morality and religious laws.

The punishments were carried out at Bustanul Salatin Park in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, as dozens of spectators—including children—watched. Some people in the crowd reportedly called for the strokes to be delivered harder.

Two women and two men each received 100 strokes with a rattan cane after being convicted of ‘zina’, an Islamic legal term for sexual relations outside marriage. The ages and identities of those punished were not released.

Four other people received 22 strokes each for offenses involving physical intimacy. Under Aceh’s Islamic criminal code, conduct such as hugging or kissing between unmarried people may result in prosecution.

Two people were caned seven times each for unlawful closeness, while another man received 20 strokes for consuming alcohol. That brought the total number punished during Thursday’s proceeding to 11.

Aceh’s laws are not representative of Indonesia as a whole. Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, but Aceh is its only province authorized to enforce a comprehensive regional Islamic criminal code. Public caning is not used as a criminal punishment across most of the country.

Aceh received special autonomy from Indonesia’s central government in 2001, allowing provincial authorities to introduce Islamic law. A 2005 peace agreement ending a decades-long separatist conflict strengthened the province’s autonomy. Aceh’s current Islamic criminal code was adopted in 2014 and took effect in 2015.

The regional code permits caning, imprisonment or fines for offenses that include sex outside marriage, same-sex sexual activity, alcohol consumption, gambling and certain forms of contact between unmarried people. In limited circumstances, the rules can also apply to non-Muslims.

Acehnese authorities and supporters of the system say the punishments reflect local religious values, discourage prohibited conduct and remain supported by a significant part of the province’s population.

Human-rights organizations and United Nations experts take a sharply different position. They maintain that public caning constitutes cruel, degrading or inhumane punishment and have repeatedly urged Indonesia to end the practice. Critics also argue that public proceedings expose those convicted to lasting humiliation beyond the physical penalty.

The latest punishments demonstrate the substantial legal differences that can exist within a single country. Conduct treated as a private matter—or not prosecuted at all—in most of Indonesia can bring severe corporal punishment under Aceh’s autonomous legal system.