Woman Collapses After Receiving 100 Lashes in Indonesia’s Aceh A woman lost consciousness and had to be carried away by officials after receiving 100 strokes of the cane in a public square Thursday, a punishment handed down by a Sharia court for having sex outside of marriage.
The unidentified woman and her male partner were among several people publicly flogged in Bustanussalatin Park in Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia’s only province that enforces Islamic Sharia law .
Witnesses reported that the woman collapsed during the proceedings. She was seen being supported by officials and transported away from the scene on a stretcher as onlookers watched . Her partner was observed grimacing in severe pain as the masked executioner—dressed in a long brown robe and a white mask—delivered the punishment with a rattan cane .
The pair were identified by local authorities as sex workers and their customers, respectively, according to Muhammad Rizal, the head of Aceh’s Islamic police force .
They were two of nine convicts punished on Thursday for violations of the region’s Islamic Qanun laws. Sentences varied based on the offense, ranging from 10 to the maximum of 100 lashes. Other violations punished during the public session included extramarital intimacy (ikhtilath) and online gambling .
A Region Apart
Aceh, located on the northern tip of Sumatra island, is the only province in the predominantly Muslim nation of Indonesia that is granted autonomy to enforce Sharia law. This special status was established in 2001 as a concession by the central government to end a long-running separatist insurgency .
Under the local bylaws, which were expanded in 2015 to apply even to the province’s small non-Muslim minority, sex between unmarried people, same-sex relations, gambling, and alcohol consumption are prohibited and punishable by caning .
Public caning is intended to serve as a deterrent through public shaming. However, the practice has drawn sharp condemnation from international human rights organizations.
Human Rights Concerns
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on Indonesian authorities to end the practice, arguing that it constitutes torture and violates international treaties that Indonesia has ratified.
“This punishment is a horrifying reminder of the institutionalized stigma and abuse faced by individuals in Aceh,” Amnesty International’s regional research director said in a statement following a similar caning last year. “Intimate relationships between consenting adults should never be criminalized” .
Local activist groups note that Indonesia’s national criminal code does not criminalize consensual same-sex relations or private adult relationships, yet the central government has no authority to strike down the religious laws in Aceh due to its special autonomy status .
Despite the international outcry, caning retains strong support among many local residents in Aceh, who view it as a necessary tool to uphold religious morals and deter “immoral behavior” .
Recent months have seen an escalation in the severity of punishments. In January of this year, authorities flogged another unmarried couple 140 times each—the harshest sentence recorded since the stricter version of Sharia law was implemented in 2015 .
