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 o

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 promise

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.

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 gambl

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 possib

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 thousa

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

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

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, criminalizi

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 chu

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 fo

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 o

Jakarta – The National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said on Monday that he removed Adj. Sr. Cmr.

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 foll

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

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 p

Fedina S.

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 Ac

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, nort

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 charge

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.

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

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

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,

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 desp

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

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.

Banda Aceh – Banda Aceh Mayor Illiza Sa'aduddin Djamal has defended her recent decision to impose a partial curfew for local women, saying that the policy would directly benefit female employees in

Jakarta – Vice President Jusuf Kalla is asking the Banda Aceh municipal administration to review the imposition of a curfew on women in the city.

Muhammad Hamzah, North Aceh – Authorities in Indonesia's North Aceh district are set to impose a new bylaw segregating men and women in all public places, as part of the enforcement of shariah prac

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – Women activists in Aceh consider the latest sharia regulations banning unmarried men and women from riding together on motorcycles and separating female and male stu

Banda Aceh – A district in Indonesia's Aceh has passed legislation banning unmarried men and women from riding together on motorbikes, a lawmaker said Monday, the latest new Islamic regulation in t

Reza Munawir, Banda Aceh – North Aceh district has passed legislation requiring schools to teach boys and girls separately and hopes to follow that up with a ban prohibiting the two sexes from ridi

Jakarta – An unmarried couple have been caned by order of the Bener Meriah regency administration in Aceh after they were found guilty of making love.

Katharina Lestari & Abby Seiff, Banda Aceh – On a recent Friday, three stragglers sat sipping the dregs of their coffee as the city of Banda Aceh closed up around them.

Banda Aceh – The sharia police in Aceh Besar regency, Aceh, conducted a public caning of six residents on Friday for cock-fight gambling.

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – Internal rifts within the elites of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) that mark the ongoing transfer of power from the group's old guard to the next generation, may weaken the Ace

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – A senior high school in Sabang, Aceh, expelled an 11th grade student last month after she got married, saying it did not permit married students to study at the scho

Ati Nurbaiti, Jakarta – The smiling woman pictured in a black veil, Rosnida Sari, is the lecturer of gender studies at the center of the latest uproar in Banda Aceh.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – Amid calls for the government to protect a lecturer at Ar-Raniry State Islamic University (UIN) who is under threat for efforts toward peace and tolerance, the unive

Ridwan Max Sijabat and Hotli Simanjuntak, Jakarta/Banda Aceh – An alliance of NGOs and individuals has called on the government to protect a lecturer at Ar-Raniry State Islamic University in Banda

Michael Bachelard, Banda Aceh – Last November, a young pregnant woman we'll call "Yasmeen"* was led onto a high platform in a city square in the Indonesian province of Aceh and prepared herself to

Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – An alliance of 34 NGOs and a group of individuals called on the government and security authorities to provide protection for a lecturer of Ar Raniry State Islamic Uni

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – Hundreds of tourists have reportedly canceled trips to Weh Island in Sabang, Aceh, as the result of recent violence allegedly committed by locals against tourists ce

Gayatri Suroyo & Charlotte Greenfield, Banda Aceh – Overwhelmed by fear, members of the main gay rights group in Banda Aceh started burning piles of documents outside their headquar

Hotli Simanjuntak and Hasyim Widhiarto, Banda Aceh – Exactly 10 years ago, modern history's biggest natural disaster struck the Indian Ocean and nowhere was the devastation and loss of

Michael Bachelard, Banda Aceh – On a stone in the middle of a grassy field, a woman sits alone, remembering the boy she'll never see again.