Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – Convoys of people drove through the streets of Banda Aceh on Thursday, brandishing the flag of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), despite a request from Aceh'

Banda Aceh – Thousands of demonstrators rallied in Indonesia's Aceh on Thursday in support of local leaders' bid to adopt a separatist flag as the staunchly Islamic province's official

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The central government has given the Aceh provincial administration 15 days to clarify Qanun (Bylaw) No.

Ezra Sihite, Nurdin Hasan & Arientha Primanita – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has sent a government minister to Aceh to dissuade local officials from adopting a separatist sym

Police in Aceh have arrested two men for allegedly raping and strangling a six-year-old girl to death.

The head of the Lhokseumawe Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) and Shariah Police in Aceh has tested positive for marijuana use after slamming his car into a tree and a house on Sunday nig

Environmental activists have condemned the Aceh administration following confirmation that it planned to reverse a logging ban imposed by the previous administration and clear up to 1.2

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Activists in Aceh on Wednesday protested a local Islamic council's recent edict accusing a cleric in South Aceh district of blasphemous teachings.

Jakarta – Environmental activists have called on the government to review the draft spatial planning bylaw proposed by the Aceh administration, which they say is putting the province's

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – The Judicial Commission (KY) said on Wednesday that it would launch a probe into a report that a judge, who was dismissed from his position a year ago, continues

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – The Aceh government has removed a provision for the stoning to death of adulterers from its draft of the Qanun Jinayat, a set of bylaws that replaces elements

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Authorities in Banda Aceh rounded up dozens of people over the weekend, mostly women, for allegedly violating the province's ultraconservative Islamic bylaws

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – After it was revealed that a group of young married women in Aceh had met to raffle off young men to sleep with, an ulema in the conservative province urged r

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Women's empowerment officials in the staunchly Islamic province of Aceh say they have uncovered a growing practice of women getting together to raffle off a m

Banda Aceh – An elderly Indonesian said Monday he had won a rare victory against a noisy mosque, despite being forced to withdraw legal action after an angry mob threatened to kill him.

A 75-year-old man in Aceh has filed a controversial lawsuit against local religious officials alleging that the noise from a nearby mosque's six loudspeakers has negatively impacted his

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – A lawsuit filed by a Muslim named Sayed Hasan, 75, against a local mosque for the excessive use of its public address (PA) system in Kampong Jawa, Banda

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – A Muslim resident of Banda Aceh says he has received death threats since he made a series of requests that local mosques turn down the volume of their lo

James Balowski, in Jakarta – Ignoring outrage and mockery at home and overseas, a town in Indonesia's northernmost province of Aceh is pressing ahead with a by-law banning female passe

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Islamic clerics in Aceh have demanded that the three police officers in the Simeulue district, who allegedly drugged and raped a 19-year-old woman, be caned f

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – A 19-year-old woman was allegedly forced to take methamphetamine and then have sex with a police officer while two other cops watched in a case local police r

Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah declined to comment when asked about the bylaw that bans women from straddling motorbikes in Lhokseumawe.

A network of women's and human rights organizations has called upon women living in the Aceh city of Lhokseumawe to ignore a bylaw banning female passengers from straddling motorcycles.

The head of Indonesia's most influential Islamic organization has come out in support of a bylaw banning female passengers from straddling motorcycles in the Aceh city of Lhokseumawe.

Ayi Yufridar, Lhokseumawe, Indonesia – Authorities in Indonesia's Aceh province are pressing ahead with a proposed Islamic law that would ban female passengers from straddling motorbike

Feri Fernandes, Lhokseumawe – A local government circular banning women passengers from straddling motorbikes has been posted at public locations in the northern Acehnese town Lhokseuma

Feri Fernandes, Lhokseumawe – The administration of the northern Acehnese town of Lhokseumawe has officially issued a circular banning women passengers from straddling motorbikes.

Arientha Primanita, Bogor – The Indonesian government will review a plan to introduce a bylaw banning female passengers from straddling motorcycles in the Aceh city of Lhokseumawe.

Margareth S.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – The number of incidents of violence as a result of Shariah law in Aceh increased in 2012 from a year earlier, a rights group noted on Thursday.

Nurdin Hassan, Banda Aceh – The plan by the administration of the Aceh town of Lhokseumawe to issue a regulation that will ban female passengers from straddling motor bikes has sparked

Bagus BT Saragih and Hotli Simanjuntak, Jakarta – The administration of Lhokseumawe, Aceh, is planning to issue a bylaw banning women from straddling motorcycles, arguing that the pract

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – The administration of the Aceh town of Lhokseumawe is set to issue a regulation that will ban female passengers from straddling motor bikes.

Irman I.P, Lhokseumawe – Ulema Consultative Assembly (MPU) chairperson Tgk H Asnawi Abdullah from the Northern Acehnese city of Lhokseumawe supports the plan by Lhokseumawe Mayor Suaidi

Nurdin Hasan – Religious tolerance for all in Aceh is still a pipe dream for most minority groups living there, despite the peaceful everyday social interactions between people of all r

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – Allegations of widespread proselytizing by Christian missionaries and the presence of illegal churches have prompted the Banda Aceh municipal administrat

SP/Muhammad Hamzah, Banda Aceh – The military's top officer in Aceh has objected to calls to use the flag of a defunct separatist group as the official flag of the province.

Nurdin Hasan & Farouk Arnaz – Banda Aceh – Police in Aceh have blamed the leader of a supposedly heretical religious group for a brutal mob attack that left him and two others dead

Hotli Simanjuntak – Three people were killed and nine others injured when a sectarian attack broke out at Jambo Dalam village in Peulimbang district, Bireuen regency in Aceh on Friday n

Bagus BT Saragih, Jakarta, Indonesia – Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi said on Thursday that the lack of legal permits from the local administration had been behind the closure of nine chur

Islamic leaders on Monday called on police to arrest a group of young people who attacked Shariah Police officers in Aceh after their music event was disbanded.

Rangga Prakoso – Authorities have closed nine churches and six Buddhist temples in Banda Aceh in the last week, following mounting pressure from local Islamist groups, activists and chu

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Security officials on Wednesday destroyed 973 illegal firearms that had been collected over the past seven years from former pro-independence militiamen in Ac

Nurdin Hasan & Farouk Arnaz, Banda Aceh – Two men believed to have been behind a grenade attack on the home of the Bireuen district head in Aceh last month have been arrested with a

Banda Aceh – Three men accused of violating Shariah law were flogged on Friday at Al-Munawwarah Mosque in the Aceh district of Aceh Besar.

James Balowski, Jakarta – A suicide in Indonesia's northernmost province of Aceh by a teenager who was publicly humiliated by the province's abusive sharia police has again put the spo

Hotli Simanjutak, Banda Aceh – Local journalists want the Press Council to investigate reports that Aceh's media reported unconfirmed allegations voiced by local sharia police that led

Ismira Lutfia – The Aceh provincial legislature's decision to further delay the setting up of a truth and reconciliation commission is a major setback to end impunity in the region, a l

Index: ASA 21/036/2012

Ismira Lutfia – The suicide this week of a teenage girl in Aceh after she was arrested and apparently humiliated by the province's Shariah police has again put the spotlight on laws tha