Two young men were publicly flogged in Indonesia’s Aceh province this week after being found guilty under Islamic law for engaging in same-sex behaviour—despite no evidence of sexual intercourse.
The men, aged 21 and 20, were caught kissing and hugging in a public toilet at Taman Sari Park in June. While the act involved no sexual activity, a panel of judges at the Banda Aceh Sharia Court ruled they had breached the province’s strict regulations against same-sex relations.
On Tuesday, their sentence was carried out in a public park in Banda Aceh, the province’s capital. The pair received 76 and 82 lashes, respectively. According to a reporter from Agence France-Presse, the man seen as initiating the relationship was handed additional strokes.
“This public flogging of two young men under Aceh’s Islamic Criminal Code for consensual sex is a disturbing act of state-sanctioned discrimination and cruelty,” said Montse Ferrer, Amnesty International’s Regional Research Director.
“This punishment is a horrifying reminder of the institutionalised stigma and abuse faced by LGBTQ+ individuals in Aceh. Intimate relationships between consenting adults should never be criminalised. Punishments such as flogging are cruel, inhuman and degrading and may amount to torture under international law.”
Same-Sex Relations Criminalised Only in Aceh
Aceh remains the only one of Indonesia’s 38 provinces where same-sex relations are explicitly criminalised. This stems from a 2001 Special Autonomy Law granting the region the right to implement Sharia law. In 2014, Aceh introduced its own Islamic Criminal Code, banning liwath (sodomy), musahaqah (lesbian acts), and zina (sex outside of marriage).
Under these laws, punishments for same-sex relations can include up to 100 lashes or prison sentences of up to 100 months.
Sharia law in the region also permits civilians to carry out citizen’s arrests and report others to authorities—a process that led to the arrest of the two men. Their sentences were slightly reduced due to the time already spent in detention over the previous three months.
The use of flogging as punishment for same-sex conduct was first enforced in Aceh in 2017, and several similar cases have occurred since.
Ferrer urged Indonesia to reevaluate its laws and honour its human rights commitments:
“Indonesia, as a member of the UN Human Rights Council and a state party to the Convention Against Torture, must align its laws – including in Aceh – with its constitutional commitments to equality and non-discrimination.
The criminalisation of same-sex conduct and corporal punishment has no place in a just and humane society.”
