Kate Lamb, Banda Aceh – At first glance the oddity of a lone palm tree on the shoreline, or a piece of graffiti with the words "hantu laut", meaning ghosts of the sea – also the words s

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – A rights group on Sunday reported a significant drop in the number of abuse-of-power cases in 2013 involving religious police officers enforcing shariah-inspi

Amnesty International has praised the Aceh parliament for passing a bylaw in December to establish a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the abuses that took place during

Index: ASA 21/001/2014

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Enforcement of the law and human rights remained shaky throughout 2013 in Aceh, a legal advocacy group says.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – In defiance of a ban placed on New Year's Eve festivities, thousands of residents of Banda Aceh gathered downtown to celebrate the occasion with fireworks and

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Shariah police in Aceh have confiscated thousands of fireworks, firecrackers and trumpets in the provincial capital as they enforce local ulemas' call for a b

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Nearly half of infant deaths in Aceh were caused by poor nutrition, an official said on Saturday.

Andreas Harsono – Here's a seasonal snapshot from Indonesia's Aceh province: on 20 December, dozens of militant Islamists rallied outside one of the largest hotels in Banda Aceh, the pr

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – For almost the last eight years, Mairia, 33, has been living with her four children in a 3-by-4 meter room since the Indian Ocean tsunami swept her house

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The Banda Aceh Ulema Consultative Assembly (MPU) has once again prohibited Muslims in the city from extending Christmas wishes and celebrating New Year's

Nurdin Hasan & SP/Muhammad Hamzah, Banda Aceh – Aceh installed on Monday a former separatist leader as the autonomous province's Wali Nanggroe – a "guardian of the state" who will o

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Muslim residents of the capital of Aceh province may have to roll back their New Year's festivities this year.

An ongoing dispute over Aceh's star and crescent flag came to a head on Monday as thousands of local residents surrounded an Indonesian Military (TNI) compound after soldiers confiscate

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Scores of young people vandalized a shariah police office and injured a religious police officer in the early hours of Tuesday morning after the Islamic autho

Dessy Sagita – Rights activists are demanding the central government re-evaluate the implementation of shariah law in Aceh following a string of violations committed by the province's m

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Detectives with the Banda Aceh Police have arrested and detained the head of the province's shariah police on suspicion of embezzlement, an officer said on Fr

Index: ASA 21/0332013

Aceh/Jijiem – Joining a rebellion is not a typical career move. Yet up to 26,000 people in Indonesia spent years working for a separatist rebellion that lasted nearly 30 years in Aceh.

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 offic

Indonesia – A bomb exploded at the offices of local tabloid Modus in Banda Aceh on Saturday morning, but no injuries have been reported.

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

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

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

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 dis

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 separa

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 separa

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 peopl

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

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

Margareth S.

Nurdin Hasan, Ketol, Central Aceh – The sound of a hammer banging on tin echoes through this small village hemmed in by hills.

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

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 wil

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

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 Tue

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 landsli

Shane J. Barter – The highly anticipated 2014 Indonesian national elections are fast approaching.

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

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.

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.

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, high

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

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 prote

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 comm

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

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 Indon

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 Cri