Aceh stages another public flogging: couple convicted of adultery get 100 lashes each

Indonesia's Aceh province has once again shown how it keeps public morals in order: a cane, a stage and an audience. On Thursday in Banda Aceh, a woman cried out in pain as she was flogged alongside a man. Both had been found guilty of breaking the region's Sharia laws.

Photographs of the scene show her pleading for mercy and then collapsing to the floor once the caning was over. A crowd watched throughout, and it included children. In Aceh, apparently, morality is best taught in person.

A verdict delivered by the stroke

Last month the Banda Aceh Sharia Court convicted the pair of adultery and sentenced each of them to 100 lashes. In one of the pictures, the woman flinches and raises a hand to beg for leniency while the cane hangs behind her, ready to fall again.

According to the news outlet AJNN, the man's beating was so severe that it had to be halted at the 60th stroke. Darma Mustika, a senior official of the regional attorney's office, offered an explanation in the reassuring language of a well-run workplace:

“Perhaps his health was a little compromised, or he simply couldn’t handle the whipping. So we stopped him first to give him a chance to rest.”— Darma Mustika

After this considerate break, the caning resumed and went on until the full 100 lashes had been delivered.

A catalogue of forbidden pleasures

Aceh is the only province in Indonesia that enforces these decrees. Under them, sex before marriage can earn a caning. So can gambling, adultery, drinking alcohol, gay sex and holding hands outside marriage.

The couple were not the only people punished that day. Eight others received between 16 and 21 lashes each for mingling at a birthday party. Sharia law strictly forbids men and women who are not related from mixing, and that ban evidently covers cake and candles.

The thinking behind the ritual is simple. The pain, together with the public humiliation, is meant to scare the horrified spectators out of committing the same “crimes”.

Weeks earlier, the same show

Only a few weeks before, four people in the same province had been harshly punished for having sex outside marriage. Two men and two women each received 100 lashes for breaching Sharia law.

At one point during that session, the masked official carrying out the beatings, known as the algojo, seemed to take pity on one of the women and whispered words of support in her ear. The woman, whose face was partly hidden by a white scarf, was photographed in tears as she fell to the ground in agony.

That flogging also took place before a crowd that included children, who had gathered to watch.

During the same event, the penalties were graded by offence:

• four people were lashed 22 times for the lesser crime of physical intimacy, which can mean hugging and kissing;
• two others received seven lashes each for being too close to one another, which can include holding hands;
• another man was flogged 20 times for drinking alcohol.