TikTok couple caned in Indonesia for kissing on livestream in conservative Aceh province
A young couple in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province were publicly caned on Thursday after an Islamic Sharia court found them guilty of violating Islamic law by kissing during a TikTok livestream.
Aceh’s Sharia court ruled that two men should be whipped 21 times each with a rattan cane for kissing before marriage. At least a hundred people witnessed the caning carried out on stage by a group of people wearing robes and headgear at Bustanussalatin City Park in Banda Aceh.
The couple, a 22-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, were arrested in April after a livestream of them kissing in a car in Banda Aceh on February 27 went viral and a report was made to local Sharia authorities.
Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia that implements a version of Islamic law. Indonesia’s secular central government gave the province the right to enforce religious laws in 2006 as part of a peace deal to end the separatist war.
In 2015, Aceh expanded the law to non-Muslims, who make up about 1 percent of the province’s population.
The law allows punishment of up to 100 lashes for moral offenses, including adultery and homosexual relations. Sticking is also allowed to punish those who gamble and drink, women who wear tight clothes, or men who do not perform Friday prayers.
The couple, who were beaten with a stick on Thursday, were sentenced to 25 lashes each, but this was reduced to 21 lashes because they had already served four months in prison.
The court also seized a mobile phone with the TikTok live video and a USB flash drive as evidence to be destroyed.
Four more people were publicly caned on Thursday for online gambling and adultery.
Amnesty International Indonesia said public caning in Aceh was a form of human rights violation because it was cruel, inhumane and degrading to human dignity, even though Indonesia had ratified a convention mandating the abolition of inhuman punishment.
“Such behavior could be considered inappropriate as social media is viewed by people of various age groups, including children. But is this a crime that warrants imprisonment or even caning? That would be extreme,” Usman Hamid, Executive Director of Amnesty International Indonesia, said on Thursday.
