Couple caned by Indonesian province for violating Sharia law by kissing on TikTok
by Brad Matthews · The Washington TimesA couple in the conservative Aceh province in northwestern Indonesia were caned Thursday for violating Sharia law by kissing on a TikTok livestream.
The couple, identified as Putra Ramadhan and Linda Hastuti, were caned by authorities in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, about 1,134 miles northwest of the national capital of Jakarta, according to Indonesian news site Infopolisi.
The two were sentenced to 25 lashes each, which was reduced to 21 for each 30 days they spent in custody, according to Infopolisi.
Mr. Ramadhan’s caning was administered by another man while standing up and went “smoothly from the first count to the last,” while Ms. Hastuti’s sentence was administered by another woman as she sat on a stage, according to Indonesian news site Detikcom as translated from Bahasa Indonesia.
Her caning was interrupted repeatedly and she collapsed after it was finished, according to Detikcom.
Mr. Ramadhan, 22, and Ms. Hastuti, 25, were arrested in April after being seen kissing on a TikTok livestream, according to The Associated Press. They were charged for the act under Sharia law because they are not married.
“We followed up on this case after receiving a report from a resident. Evidence in the form of video screenshots is the basis for legal proceedings, all the way to the Sharia Court,” said M. Rizal, the head of the Banda Aceh City Public Order Agency, according to Indonesian news site Tadulako as translated from Bahasa Indonesia.
Aceh is the only province in Indonesia where Islamic religious law is practiced, having been allowed to do so by the officially secular central government in 2006 to quell separatist sentiments in the province, according to the AP.
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Human rights advocates decried the public punishment and the general practice of caning.
The “public caning of a young man and woman simply for kissing is a horrifying act of discrimination … Caning is an inherently cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment … Indonesia’s authorities must end the criminalization of consensual intimacy and repeal all discriminatory bylaws that permit corporal punishment,” Amnesty International Regional Co-Director Montse Ferrer said in a statement.
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