Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – A Shariah Police officer was arrested Saturday night for allegedly attempting to supply hashish to a prisoner at West Aceh's Meulaboh penitentiary while officers caught another prisoner attempting to saw through the jail's bars in a failed escape attempt.

Indonesia – A bomb exploded at the offices of local tabloid Modus in Banda Aceh on Saturday morning, but no injuries have been reported. The bomb damaged the entrance door into the weekly tabloid's premises.

The police have deployed a team of investigators to determine who was behind the terror attack.

Jakarta – The Health Ministry is supporting the move by local administrations – including Sabang city in Aceh – to make it a requirement for high school students to record the shape and size of their genitalia for its health status reports.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Parents in Aceh were demanding answers from education officials on Wednesday after it emerged that children as young as 11 were told to fill in a survey that included questions about the size of their genitals and whether they had experienced any sexual dreams.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Residents of the Karang Anyar village in Langsa denied reports that a drunken mob had beaten Shariah police as they tried to disperse a live music performance on Sunday evening.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Several Shariah police officers were injured in the early hours of Monday morning after more than a hundred youths attacked them while they were trying to disperse live-music performances in the Aceh town of Langsa.

A recent report by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) alleges "gross human rights violations" by the Indonesian Military during its 30-year campaign against the separatist Free Aceh Movement. The report highlights issue that remain to be addressed, according to Amnesty International.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah has criticized the action by security forces to forcefully seize hundreds of flags bearing the symbol of the now-disbanded separatist Free Aceh Movement without any consultation with him.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Shariah Police in West Aceh said on Sunday that they have arrested total of 35 food vendors in the district for selling meals during Ramadan while other people were fasting.

Ina Parlina and Yuliasri Perdani, Jakarta – Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi is claiming that the Aceh administration has opened negotiations to change its official provincial flag and coat of arms, which has stirred controversy since it was launched in March.

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) declared that the military operation in Aceh, which lasted from 1989 until a peace deal was signed in 2005, could be categorized as a gross human rights violation and that the Indonesian Military (TNI) was responsible for the atrocities.

Nurdin Hasan – Dozens of plain-clothes security forces moved through the streets of Aceh's Lhokseumawe city early Friday morning, seizing hundreds of flags bearing the symbol of the now-disbanded Free Aceh Movement (GAM) separatists as local residents, awake for their pre-dawn Ramadan meal, looked on.

Nurdin Hasan, Ketol, Central Aceh – The sound of a hammer banging on tin echoes through this small village hemmed in by hills. Perched atop a ladder, 65-year-old Diarah Kardi pounds nails through the roof of a rickety wooden structure.

"This used to be a storage shed. But it got badly damaged during the earthquake," he tells the Jakarta Globe.

Robertus Wardi – Officials in Jakarta have lashed out at the Aceh administration for its insistence on flying the flag of a now-disbanded separatist group as its provincial standard.

Angela Dewan, Lhokseumawe – As the sun sets over Aceh province on the westernmost tip of Indonesia and the call to prayer blares from mosque speakers, five policemen leap onto the back of a patrol truck, ready to round up lawbreakers.

Hotli Simanjuntak and Nadya Natahadibrata, Banda Aceh/Jakarta – More than 7,400 people have joined an online campaign calling on the government to launch a probe into the death of a wild elephant in Aceh.

SP/Muhammad Hamzah, Banda Aceh – Police were investigating last night after an East Aceh legislator's car was found to have been shot at by an unknown party in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – A rescue team involving the military, police and volunteers is struggling through rain and rubble to search for bodies and deliver aid, which survivors of Tuesday's deadly earthquake in Aceh say isn't coming soon enough.

Banda Aceh, Indonesia – Soldiers, police and volunteers fanned out across an earthquake-damaged region of western Indonesia on Wednesday, scouring the debris of fallen homes and landslides for possible victims of a temblor that killed at least 22 people and injured hundreds.

Shane J. Barter – The highly anticipated 2014 Indonesian national elections are fast approaching. For years, the big question has been what happens after the sitting president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), finishes his second and final term.

Banda Aceh – The government in Aceh has claimed that a social media movement aiming to discredit Shariah law in the province exists, though it has refused to provide any details on who may be carrying out the conspiracy.

Nadya Natahadibrata, Jakarta – A coalition of women's rights groups report that cases of violence against women have been on the rise in Aceh in the past two years.

Nurdin Hasan – A police officer was publicly caned in an Aceh district on Tuesday for violating Shariah law, making him the first law enforcer to receive such a punishment.

Darwin, the head of general crimes unit at the Sabang Attorney's Office, told the Jakarta Globe that Brig. Irwanuddin was lashed six times for gambling in the district of Aceh Besar.

Camelia Pasandaran – A women's rights group has criticized a move by North Aceh's district head to ban women in the area from dancing in public places.

Muhammad Thaib, the district chief, on Saturday said that he had banned all adult women from dancing when welcoming guests in North Aceh, adding that only children should perform the tradition.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Police in Indonesia's westernmost city have thwarted the caning of a police officer and two other people convicted by Aceh's morality police of gambling, highlighting the double standard in enforcing Shariah law in the province.

The Forestry Ministry has denied claims by several environmental groups that 1.2 million hectares of protected forest in Aceh will be cleared if the province's proposed spatial planning draft is approved.

Nadya Natahadibrata, Jakarta – More than a million people worldwide have joined online calls for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to block the Aceh administration's plan to open protected forests for commercial exploitation.

More than a million people across the globe have signed an online petition demanding the Indonesian government to cancel the plan to open the protected virgin rainforest in Aceh to commercial exploitation.

Jakarta – The Institute for the Free Flow of Information (ISAI) announced on Tuesday that Aceh is the least likely province to allow press freedom and the most dangerous for journalists in Indonesia's 34 provinces.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – The Aceh Legislative Council (DPRA) is mulling a Shariah bylaw that would mandate tougher sentences for convicted rapists than those doled out under the Indonesian Criminal Code.

A dispute over a flag in Aceh is testing the limits of autonomy, provoking Indonesia's central government and could pave the way for separatist factions to emerge, the International Crisis Group said.

Ina Parlina, National – The two-week deadline has passed but the central government and the Aceh provincial administration are no closer to resolving the controversial plan to change the province's official flag, which resembles the flag of the now-defunct separatist group, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Camelia Pasandaran & Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Homosexual men and women living in Indonesia's strictly conservative Aceh province would be publicly lashed 100 times under a new bylaw backed by the provincial capital's deputy governor.

Index: ASA 21/011/2013

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – The Banda Aceh Administrative Court on Friday ruled in favor of a palm oil company in its lawsuit against the Aceh governor's revocation of its permit to clear and operate on a 1,605-hectare land in Rawa Tripa, a lush forest and peatland region in the province's Nagan Raya district.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Dozens of legislative candidates vying for the 81 seats in the Aceh provincial legislature in the 2014 general election have flunked a Koran proficiency test – one of the requirements under a local bylaw for running for public office.

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – Constitutional Court chief Akil Mochtar said on Tuesday there was no need to fret about Aceh's official flag, which resembles the flag of the now-defunct separatist group, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

Yuliasri Perdani, Jakarta – The latest study from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Indonesia found that the local administration in Aceh is the worst performer when it comes to protecting the country's remaining forests.

Of the country's top 10 provinces with the largest forest area Aceh scored the lowest on the UNDP's forest government index.

Banda Aceh – As many as 1,231 legislative candidates from across Aceh will take a Koran recital test organized by the Aceh Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIP) as part of a requirement for every person contesting the 2014 election.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Police in Aceh suspect a political motive is behind the murder of a local politician who was gunned down by unknown assailants on Friday morning.

Muhammad bin Zainal Abidin, 33, a member of the Aceh National Party (PNA), was shot twice in the back of the head after his Toyota Avanza MPV was reportedly hijacked.

Jakarta – An online petition against forest clearance in Aceh has the support of 20,000 netizens.

As of Friday, the petition at http://change.org/selamatkanAceh, had drawn 20,200 signatories both from Indonesia and abroad.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – All candidates contesting next year's legislative elections in Aceh will be required to take a Koran proficiency test, a member of the province's electoral body said on Tuesday.

Laura Dawson, Gabriel Kereh & Tito Summa Siahaan – The specter of a resurgence in violence in Aceh looms large unless past rights abuses are properly addressed, a human rights group said on Thursday, in a warning that suggests its economic recovery could be derailed following three decades of separatist insurgency and a devastating tsunami.

The Indonesian government has said it aims to approve within a month a plan that would free up vast swathes of protected virgin rainforest on Sumatra island for commercial exploitation.

Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – Claiming that none of alleged rights abuses during the 30-year-conflict between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) have been resolved, a coalition of human rights watchdogs has called for the a tribunal to hear past cases of rights violations.

Niniek Karmini, Jakarta, Indonesia – An international rights group urged Indonesian authorities on Thursday to seek justice for victims of a separatist conflict in Aceh province that ended with a peace agreement nearly eight years ago, warning that growing resentment could lead to future violence.

Michael Bachelard – A mining company has boasted of an Indonesian government decision to free up 1.2 million hectares of virgin forest in Aceh for commercial exploitation.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The Aceh Legislative Council (DPRA) is accelerating the deliberation of a provincial qanun (bylaw) to establish the Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (KKR) in Aceh by holding hearings involving activists and institutions concerned with human rights issues.

Victims and family members are still waiting for the Indonesian authorities to provide them with truth, justice and full reparation almost eight years after the end to the devastating Aceh conflict, Amnesty International said in a new report released today.

Thirty-five women in Aceh's city of Lhokseumawe have been let off with a warning after the Shariah police caught them straddling a motorcycle and not wearing appropriate Islamic dress.

The Shariah police were conducting a raid on the main roads of Lhokseumawe on Friday, to monitor the administration's bylaw that prohibits female passengers from straddling motorcycles.