Overview
- A Sharia court in Banda Aceh ordered a 22-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman to receive 21 lashes each, and the punishment was carried out publicly on a stage in a park.
- The pair were arrested after a livestreamed kiss went viral and they spent four months in pretrial detention, which led judges to reduce an original 25-lash sentence to 21 to account for time served.
- Prosecutors and local Sharia enforcement defended public caning as a tool to deter violations of Aceh's morality laws.
- Amnesty International and other rights groups condemned the punishment as cruel, inhuman and degrading and urged Indonesian authorities to end public floggings.
- Aceh is the only Indonesian province that applies formal Sharia law under a post-conflict autonomy deal from the early 2000s, and the practice raises fresh questions about social media policing, public punishment and rights in the region.