Arif Gunawan Sulistiyono, Jakarta – Leuser ecosystem, a UNESCO world heritage site that covers thousands of hectares of protected forest in Aceh and North Sumatra, must be included in the Aceh spatial plan regulation (Qanun RTRWA), former environment minister Emil Salim has stated.

Marguerite Afra Sapiie, Jakarta – The House of Representatives has approved the government's plan to provide an amnesty for 70 Acehnese former rebels, including their leader, Nurdin Ismail aka Din Minimi, who surrendered earlier this year.

Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights, or Komnas HAM, on Wednesday (22/06) named evidence of gross human rights abuse conducted by the soldiers in the 1999 Kertas Kraft Aceh tragedy, which killed dozens of people.

The commission said in a statement that it included massacre and persecution against rallying protesters in North Aceh district in 1999.

Adam Harvey, Aceh – There has been a surge in the number of public canings for moral offences in the Indonesian province of Aceh. Amnesty International said more than 108 people were caned in public last year for offences such as selling alcohol, gambling, and sex outside marriage.

Representatives of Aceh Singkil Christian residents have filed a report with the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), accusing their local government of discriminating against them in the courts and schools, as well as when it came to obtaining their church's construction permit.

Hotli Simanjuntak – The Takengon Prosecutor's Office in Central Aceh regency, Aceh, caned on Tuesday a 60-year-old woman, Remita Sinaga, alias Mak Ucok, for violating sharia by storing and selling alcohol. She was the first non-Muslim to be subjected to the punishment in Aceh.

Lhokseumawe – A concert featuring an up-and-coming local pop sensation was banned by the city administration of Lhokseumawe, Aceh, who said it was violating shariah law.

Marguerite Afra Sapiie – People grouped under Gerakan Rakyat Menggugat (GeRAM) are raising awareness for the need to protect the Leuser Ecosystem Zone (KEL) in Aceh through an online petition.

Jewel Topsfield, Jakarta – Outdoor music concerts have been banned from a regency in Indonesia's conservative Aceh province on the grounds they violate Sharia law.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – A group of women were paraded onto a waiting truck that would carry them to the nearby sharia police office. They would likely be charged for not wearing a hijab, which has been made mandatory in the only province that has adopted Islamic law.

Banda Aceh – A young woman collapsed while being publicly caned in Banda Aceh on Thursday for violating sharia.

Sakdiah, 22, who was sentenced to receiving 20 lashes with a cane for going on dates with her boyfriend, Budiman, was carried away on a stretcher by a medical team for treatment, Antara news agency reported on Thursday.

Hotli Simanjuntak and Ahmad Junaidi, Banda Aceh/Jakarta – Bieureun regency in Aceh has banned the employment of openly transgender people at beauty parlors, expressing concern about the influence of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community on the youth.

Jakarta – Ulemas in the West Aceh regency say there is no place for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the area and are threatening to cane those committing such activities as they claim they are violating the laws of God and sharia as implemented in Indonesia's westernmost province.

Banda Aceh – Officials in Aceh disbanded a talent show on Sunday evening (28/02) for featuring a fashion show displaying clothing deemed inappropriate under the province's shariah bylaws.

Jakarta – Members of the House of Representatives have criticized the government's plan to grant amnesty to former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) member Nurdin bin Ismail, popularly known as Din Minimi.

Many of the House lawmakers said that Din was ineligible for amnesty due to his role in a separatist movement.

Aceh fishermen are nominated to receive the 2016 Nansen Refugee Award from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) for rescuing hundreds of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh in Indonesian waters.

Michael Neilson, Jakarta – Activists are suing the Indonesian government in a bid to stop development they say will devastate the last remaining area on earth where Sumatran tigers, rhinoceroses, orangutans and elephants live together in the wild.

Hans Nicholas Jong, Jakarta – A group of Aceh citizens will lodge a civil lawsuit against the Home Ministry at the Central Jakarta District Court on Thursday in a bid to preserve the Leuser Ecosystem Zone (KEL), which they consider a unique and irreplaceable natural environment.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The government must rule out an option of granting amnesty to former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) combatant Din Minimi and his fellow insurgents as such a move could create legal uncertainty and inspire an upsurge of terrorist activities, a public discussion in Banda Aceh concluded on Thursday.

Jakarta – Rights activist are calling the Indonesian government's decision to provide amnesty to former Aceh fugitive Din Minimi inappropriate, arguing that he was more the leader of a crime ring than a group with a specific political ideology.

The pardon, they warned, could lead to a wave of similar requests from criminals.

Jakarta – The Indonesian police chief has taken issue with a move by the country's spy chief to promise amnesty to a militant who turned himself in, saying he must still face justice for a number of murders and other crimes.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – After three years on the run, 30 active members of the Din Minimi-led armed civilian group in Aceh have surrendered to the government after being promised an amnesty.

Jakarta – The city of Banda Aceh has issued a decree banning its predominantly Muslim residents from celebrating the New Year, an official said on Tuesday.

"It is forbidden for Muslims to celebrate Christmas and Christian New Year," Banda Aceh Deputy Mayor Zainal Arifin said, as quoted by Tempo.co.

Jakarta – Sharia police officers, locally known as Wilayatul Hisbah, raided a number of warnet (internet cafes) in North Aceh in the wee hours of Friday morning in an effort to prevent online gambling.

It was reported by kompas.com that officers raided warnet in Keude Lhoksukon of North Aceh after being tipped off that online gambling sites and porn sites had been accessed.

Aceh Singkil – When a mob of Muslims swooped on a little church deep in rural Aceh in Indonesia this month, the local police were nowhere to be seen, although they had received warnings of a possible attack.

Erika Anindita, Jakarta – The government was absent in the Aceh Singkil incident after it failed to accommodate the wave of protests that lead to an incident that claimed one life and caused thousands of people flee their homes after a church was burned down, experts said on Monday.

Jakarta – Rights group Amnesty International has called on Indonesian authorities to immediately repeal Aceh's Islamic Criminal Code, which came into effect on Friday, arguing that punishing people for having consensual sex is "despicable."

Authorities in the Indonesian region of Aceh must immediately repeal a controversial new bylaw which imposes harsh flogging sentences for consensual sex in some instances and could make it easier for rapists to escape justice, said Amnesty International today.

Kate Lamb, Jakarta – Indonesia is struggling to live up to its national motto "unity in diversity" after a mob attack on a church left one dead and the authorities responded by demolishing more churches.

The attack took place in the conservative province of Aceh, the only region in Indonesia that has sharia law and where religious tension has been brewing for months.

Aceh Singkil – The Aceh Singkil administration continued on Thursday to demolish 10 churches, which a group of Islamic youths had protested for not having building permits.

Human rights groups criticize the implementation of a tougher version of the Qanun Jinayat – Aceh's Islamic Criminal Bylaw, which takes effect Friday – and call on the central government to push for change.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The Aceh administration is officially implementing the Qanun Jinayat (Islamic Criminal Code Bylaw) on Friday for Muslims and non-Muslims in the province, criminalizing drinking liquor, dating in public and homosexuality, among other things.

Jakarta – The Aceh administration will start implementing a new, tougher Qanun Jinayat (Islamic criminal bylaw) on Friday, with wider scope and harsher punishments for violators, an official said on Thursday.

Jakarta – The National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said on Monday that he removed Adj. Sr. Cmr. Budi Samekto as Aceh Singkil police chief over his incompetence in managing the conflict, which claimed one life and sent thousands on exodus.

Aceh Singkil – Authorities in Aceh province on Monday began tearing down several small Christian churches after hard-line Muslims demanded their closure, citing a lack of building permits, and following religious violence.

Aceh Singkil – Hardline Muslims in Indonesia's conservative Aceh province on Sunday demanded the local government close 10 Christian churches, just days after a mob burnt down a church, leaving one person dead and several injured.

Thousands of vulnerable people – children, women and the elderly – are staying in shelters following the burning of a church that prompted thousands to flee their hometown of Aceh Singkil in Aceh province, an official of a church organization said on Saturday.

Fedina S. Sundaryani and Hotli Simanjuntak, Central Tapanuli, North Sumatra – Police have named 10 people suspects for their alleged role in burning a church in Aceh Singkil regency, Aceh, an incident that has triggered an exodus of thousands of residents leaving to take shelter in neighboring North Sumatra.

Jakarta – The National Police said on Tuesday that one person has died and others are injured after a brawl between two mobs over the burning of a church in a village in Aceh Singkil district in Aceh province.

Kate Walton, Guest Contributor – In the same month that 12 UN agencies called on all states to end violence and discrimination against LGBTI people, two young women have been arrested in Aceh, northwest Indonesia, on suspicion of being lesbians.

Jakarta – An international rights group has called on authorities in Aceh to immediately release unconditionally two women arrested on suspicion of being lesbians.

Banda Aceh – Islamic Shariah police in Indonesia's devout Aceh province say two suspected lesbians apprehended this past week in a tourist resort will undergo rehabilitation instead of being charged with a crime.

The arrest of two women in Aceh for everyday behavior is an outrageous abuse of police power that should be considered a threat to all Indonesians. – Graeme Reid, LGBT rights director

Banda Aceh – The Wilayatul Hisbah (Sharia Police) have apprehended two young women for allegedly being a lesbian couple after the two were seen sitting and hugging in a public space in the capital city of Aceh province.

Jakarta – An official in Aceh has been demoted for featuring a "vulgar" and "erotic" Indian dance performance during a cultural festival in the province's capital last week.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The former chairman of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) team, Pieter Feith, has said that Aceh administrations have not yet been able to take full advantage of the abundant budgets available to them following the peace deal 10 years ago, which has caused the reintegration process and economic development in the province to remain stagnant.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Fakhruddin Kasem hoped for a prosperous new life when Indonesia struck a deal to end a separatist conflict in Aceh, but a decade on the unemployed former rebel is so desperate he hopes to join the Islamic State group to make ends meet.

Indonesia is still failing tens of thousands affected by the devastating Aceh conflict, leaving family members and victims in the dark about the fate of loved ones and without justice, truth and full reparation Amnesty International said ahead of the 10-year anniversary of the conflict's end.

Khoiriyah Helanita, Jakarta – Deliberations on the bill on gender equality and justice have been stalled for quite some time and may not be endorsed by the House of Representatives anytime soon due to the strong opposition from many institutions, mostly religious ones.

Banda Aceh – The capital of Aceh province has imposed a partial curfew for women that it says will reduce sexual violence but which critics say is discriminatory, the Associated Press has reported.