Aceh

Jantho, Aceh.With heads bowed, two young women walked toward a wooden stage outside Al Munawwarah Mosque in Jantho, Aceh Besar. Friday prayers had just ended, and hundreds of residents surrounded the platform, keeping a respectful distance but keen to watch. 

The eyes of Murni binti Amris, 27, and Rukiah binti Abdullah, 22, began to water. They feared the worst when officers of the Shariah Police dragged them to the center of the stage. The women had dared to sell cooked rice in the daytime during Ramadan, violating the 2002 Islamic bylaw in Aceh. With a quivering voice, Murni said: “Wait, sir.” She wanted to correct her sitting position. However, the man standing over her brandishing a rattan cane took no heed, lashing her three times across the back. 

Banda Aceh. An Indonesian court on Thursday jailed two Islamic policemen for gang-raping a young woman in custody, a case that has sparked outrage in the deeply religious province of Aceh. Mohammed Nazir, 29, and Feri Agus, 28, were found guilty of raping a 20-year-old student in a police station in January after she was arrested with her boyfriend under local laws designed to enforce Islamic morals. The eight-year jail sentence for the two men was lighter that the maximum penalty of 12 years demanded by prosecutors who said the defendants, as sharia police officers, should have better morals.

The Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women and the International Solidarity Network, Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) are jointly concerned about the issuance of a new regulation in the district of West Aceh, Indonesia, which strictly forbids Muslims, especially women, to wear tight clothes. The new regulation was issued on Thursday, 27 May 2010, by the Head of the district of West Aceh. Non-Muslims who reside in West Aceh or are temporarily present in West Aceh are also required to respect and to adapt to the new regulation. This new regulation makes West Aceh the first district in the country to strictly implement an ‘Islamic’ dress code and if signed by the Provincial Governor would eventually be enforced in the entire province of Aceh.

Authorities in a devoutly Islamic district of Indonesia's Aceh province have distributed 20,000 long skirts and prohibited shops from selling tight dresses as a regulation banning Muslim women from wearing revealing clothing took effect Thursday. The long skirts are to be given to Muslim women caught violating the dress code during a two-month campaign to enforce the regulation, said Ramli Mansur, head of West Aceh district. Islamic police will determine whether a woman's clothing violates the dress code, he said.