“The law is to safeguard human dignity,” said Provincial Sharia chief Syahrizal Abbas
A new law in the conservative Indonesian province of Aceh will punish from Friday those thought to have had gay sex with 100 lashes from a cane.
Chaideer Mahyuddin—AFP/Getty Images
An Indonesian Shari‘a police whips a man during a public caning ceremony outside a mosque in Banda Aceh, capital of Indonesia’s Aceh province, on Sept, 18, 2015
Although gay sex is not illegal according to Indonesian national law, Aceh has some autonomy from the central Jakarta government and has adopted a form of Shari‘a law.
Provincial Sharia chief Syahrizal Abbas told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that anal sex between men and “the rubbing of body parts between women for stimulation” was illegal in the western province under a bylaw regulation passed in 2014. The law is only now coming into effect, he said, as the province took a year to educate the public regarding its contents.
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