Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – A group of sharia police personnel unusually just sit in the back of a pick-up patrol vehicle while making the rounds in downtown Banda Aceh, Aceh provin

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Aceh's deputy governor said on Tuesday that there was no need to disband the province's Wilayatul Hisbah, or Shariah Police, because there was no legal obliga

Karima Anjani and John M.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – - Shariah Police officers who are suspects in Friday's alleged gang rape of a 20-year-old university student may find some respite from knowing they will be c

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – A serious blow to the credibility and morality of sharia police in Aceh province, has occurred after several members were detained for an alleged gang ra

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Having gang-raped and tortured a female student at the Langsa Shariah Police station in Aceh, the three officers responsible have forever blackened the name o

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – Here's a provocative thought: if it weren't for the 2004 tsunami, Western aid workers in Banda Aceh city would not be the target of politically motivated

Hundreds of tsunami refugees in Aceh province held a rally in front of West Aceh's Regional Representative Council Building on Monday to demand homes that they said the government had p

Jerome Rivet, Banda Aceh – She wears a helmet and drives her scooter slowly through the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, but Yuli is still stopped by the sharia police.

On Boxing Day 2004, a tsunami killed more than 220,000 people. Five years on, Tim Hume returns to Indonesia and witnesses a remarkable recovery.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Today, the people of Aceh commemorate the most tragic day in our history with prayers, memories and visits to the mass graves that hold the unidentified remai

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Aceh's Religious Affairs Office has moved to distance itself from its controversial decision to prevent the barongsai, or Chinese lion dance, from being perfo

Lampuk (Indonesia) – Ikra Alfila has rediscovered the joy of play, but the little 10-year-old still has nightmares about giant waves five years after the tsunami that killed everyone in

Nurdin Hasan, Anita Rachman & Putri Prameshwari, Banda Aceh – Religious officials in Aceh have sparked yet another controversy, this time banning the barongsai, or traditional Chine

Teuku Dani Ramadhan, Zahara Sulaiman & Ade Mardiyati – In Pasar Rakyat, a market in Meulaboh in Indonesia's West Aceh, a young woman busily browses through a rack of skirts.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Activists in Aceh on Friday criticized the lack of civil involvement in the autonomous region when they met with Martti Ahtisaari, the diplomat who brokered t

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Former rebels of the Free Aceh Movement celebrated the 33rd anniversary of the founding of their now-disbanded organization by holding mass prayers and provid

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – Foreign citizens have yet again become the target of terror attacks in Aceh, this time against two American citizens staying in a house at the Syiah Kual

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Aceh's controversial Qanun Jinayat code, which allows stoning to death for adulterers, would be difficult to implement because it was open to interpretation,

The equivalent of about 10,000 football fields of forest have been lost each year for the past five years in Aceh's Leuser ecosystem due to illegal logging and the clearing of land for

Ref: TG ASA 21/2009/44. AI Index: ASA 21/021/2009

Gamawan Fauzi
Home Affairs Minister
Jl. Medan Merdeka Utara No. 7.
Jakarta Pusat
Indonesia

Bachtiar Effendy, Jakarta – It seems almost natural that the Aceh legislature has passed a bill on adultery based on Islamic sharia – which derives from the Koran and Sunnah (traditions

Banda Aceh – Officials say a German working for the Red Cross has been shot by men on a motorcycle in Indonesia's Aceh province.

Camelia Pasandaran – Fourteen civil society groups on Thursday condemned Aceh's stoning bylaw, the Qanun Jinayat code, saying that most Acehnese were not in favor of it but that critics

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The sharia regulation prohibiting women from wearing pants in West Aceh regency drew strong condemnation from public circles in Aceh province.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – The local bylaw calling for adulterers to be stoned to death cannot be implemented because lawmakers who passed the regulation did not act with the blessings

Nurdin Hasan, Candra Malik & Antara, Banda Aceh – Human rights activists protested on Thursday over a district-wide ban on women wearing tight pants scheduled to take effect in West

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Wild animal attacks in Aceh, particularly by elephants and Sumatran tigers, are highlighting the worsening conflict between wildlife and humans owing to the i

Jakarta – Muslim women would be banned from wearing tight pants in a devoutly Islamic district of Indonesia's Aceh province under proposed regulations to take effect Jan.

Hotli Simanjuntak and Jon Afrizal, Banda Aceh, Jambi – Deforestation in Aceh has continued to worsen despite the signing of a logging moratorium that prohibits anyone from felling fores

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The newly inaugurated members of the Aceh Legislative Council are set to revise the sharia bylaw passed by former legislators that stipulate, among other

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Responding to a public outcry over the bylaw that mandates stoning to death for adulterers, Aceh Legislative Council members have agreed to review the Islamic

Jakarta – NGOs will request a judicial review of the newly endorsed bylaw in Aceh that condemns adulterers to be stoned to death.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – Hundreds of relatives of Acehnese people who went missing during the conflict, which lasted from 1976 to 2005, have strongly urged the provincial governm

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – The aging former leader of the disbanded Free Aceh Movement is expected to arrive in the province on Saturday for the second time since he fled the country in

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – The Aceh government said on Friday that it would not let recently crowned Putri Indonesia Qori Sandioriva represent the province as she had failed to comply w

A new law mandating death by stoning for adulterers in Indonesia's deeply Islamic Aceh province advocates "torture" and should be overturned, US-based group Human Rights Watch said Mond

Nurdin Hassan, Banda Aceh – In the latest religious dispute out of Aceh, a prominent group of Islamic clerics has denounced newly crowned Putri Indonesia Qori Sandioriva for "bringing s

Stoning and flogging constitute torture in any circumstances.

As the people of West Sumatra gather the ruins of their lives around them and slowly start again, forced to accept there are bodies that will never be recovered from last week's earthqu

Jakarta – The debate about whether to review Aceh's bylaw that allows adulterers to be stoned heated up Tuesday, with religious leaders voicing their objection to the enactment of the l

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf has refused to sign the controversial Qanun Jinayat Code, or Islamic bylaw, and asked newly installed members of the Aceh legislat

Camelia Pasandaran – Despite widespread condemnation, the Aceh Legislative Council said on Sunday that it would implement a bylaw that allows the stoning of adulterers and the lashing o

Camelia Pasandaran – Hundreds of Acehnese displaced by the December 2004 tsunami celebrated Idul Fitri in a squalid camp in Aceh Besar district, prompting calls on Wednesday for the pro

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – More woman's groups in Aceh are calling for a review of the new bylaw which allows capital punishment by stoning for adulterers, though the local governm

Sunanda Creagh – Recent moves in the country, including plans by Aceh to stone adulterers to death, have raised concerns about its reputation as a beacon of moderate Islam.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – Widespread deforestation in the Islamic province of Aceh is threatening some of its rich traditions, including one ancient custom practiced to celebrate

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The Aceh provincial government will not sign the controversial Islamic bylaw allowing adulterers to be stoned to death, an official said.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International has joined the chorus of condemnation against Aceh province's passing of a new Islamic law calling for adulterers to be stoned to death and h

A statement from an NGO coalition based in Aceh, Indonesia forwarded by the Asian Human Rights Commission