Two Men Publicly Flogged for Same-Sex Relations in Indonesia’s Aceh

 

Two men were publicly flogged 76 times each in Aceh, Indonesia, after being convicted of engaging in same-sex relations under the province’s strict Islamic law.

The punishment took place on Tuesday at a park in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, where a total of 10 people were flogged for various offenses. The men, who were caned separately with a rattan stick, endured the punishment before a small crowd, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.

Authorities said the pair were arrested in April after sharia police found them together in a public toilet in the same park. “A member of the public saw suspicious people and reported it,” explained Roslina A. Djalil, head of Banda Aceh sharia police’s law enforcement division. Their initial sentence of 80 lashes each was reduced by four in consideration of the four months they had already spent in detention.

Amnesty International strongly condemned the flogging. In a statement, Montse Ferrer, the group’s regional research director, described the incident as “a disturbing act of state-sanctioned discrimination and cruelty” against two young men for consensual sexual relations.

Aceh is the only region in Indonesia that enforces a version of Islamic sharia law, which criminalizes same-sex relations. Elsewhere in the country, such relations are not illegal.