Index: ASA 21/021/2011

Jakarta/Brussels – Five years after the first post-conflict elections in Aceh brought former guerrillas of the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, GAM) to power, local elections s

Stephen Schaber – Aceh will hold its second post-conflict election in November and, according to the International Crisis Group, it will be bitterly contested by two former Free Aceh Mo

Over 100 demonstrators protesting the issuance of mining permits vandalized the gate of the Aceh governor's office on Monday after they were banned from staging a rally inside the build

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Aceh has decided to hold its provincial, district and mayoral elections on Nov.

An Indonesian human rights group on Friday condemned the use of caning in staunchly Islamic Aceh province, saying the punishment violated the country's constitution.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Eighteen men and one woman were caned in the eastern Aceh town of Langsa on Thursday, less than a week after Amnesty International called for an end to the pr

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – M. is a member of the Wilayatul Hisbah, Aceh's Shariah Police, and he is proud of it. But the athletically built 33-year-old is no ordinary officer.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – City officials said on Thursday that they would stick to their threat to name and shame members of a banned sect who had not yet repented before the deadline

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Acehnese clerics have criticized Amnesty International's call for the Indonesian government to repeal a bylaw that allowed caning, arguing that the practice d

Jakarta – Amnesty International urged Indonesia to repeal laws in Aceh that allow the use of caning as a punishment as it violates international human rights law, just after Indonesia w

The Indonesian government must end the use of caning as a form of punishment and repeal the laws that allow it in Aceh province, Amnesty International said today after at least 21 peopl

Nurdin Hasan – Fourteen people convicted of violating Aceh's strict Islamic code on gambling were publicly caned in Langsa, East Aceh, a prosecutor said on Friday.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Organizers of a beauty pageant in Aceh defied opposition from a conservative Islamic group by staging the event on Friday evening.

Islamic students organization Rabithah Thaliban Aceh (RTA) has opposed plans to hold a Miss Aceh pageant as part of the 2011 Aceh Fair at Blang Padang in Banda Aceh.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – The Aceh Jaya district administration has banned four nongovernmental organizations from conducting relief work after the groups were accused of carrying out

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh - Officials have lambasted an Australian carbon broker for selling the marketing rights for carbon credits created through a forest conservation project to a Ca

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Over a hundred members of the recently banned Millata Abraham Muslim sect on Friday underwent a mass conversion to mainstream faith at the Baiturrahman Raya M

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Human rights activists on Tuesday criticized Aceh's provincial administration for failing to prevent vigilantes from punishing alleged violators of Shariah la

Nurdin Hasan, Aceh Besar – Two couples in staunchly Muslim Aceh were caned in public on Friday for separate acts of indecency.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Unknown assailants threw a live grenade at the home of an Aceh Party leader early Friday, sparking fears about the resurgence of politically motivated terrori

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Thousands of Muslim teachers and students on Thursday thronged the streets of Banda Aceh, demanding that the governor clamp down on "deviant" religious sects.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – An activist in Aceh has attacked the provincial administration for endorsing a mining plan that he insists will severely damage the environment and cause more

Heavy flooding in eight subdistricts of West Aceh has forced the evacuation of thousands of people, an official said.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Decades of armed conflict in Aceh may be officially over, but scars remain from that tumultuous time that, as people like Reza Idri insist, should never be fo

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – A squad of Aceh's "fashion police" was berated and attacked on Wednesday by a group of men angry over the officers' attempt to escort what they deemed to be a

Jakarta – Women should have greater opportunities in decision-making processes to ensure the effectiveness of policy programs designed to help the poor – especially women and children –

Hotli Simanjuntak, Pidie, Aceh – Uncontrolled illegal logging has been blamed for a flash flood in Tangse district, Pidie regency, Aceh, on Thursday evening.

Nurdin Hasan & Antara, Pidie, Aceh – At least 11 people were killed and more than 100 homes destroyed in a flash flood that struck Pidie district in Aceh on Thursday night.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Rizal Adi Syaputra says he is a proud punk, but still prefers to hide his dyed red hair under a cap.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The Network for Civil Society Concerned with Sharia (JMSPS) in Aceh has criticized clerics and asked them not to overly interfere in enforcing the Muslim

Nurdin Hasan – A group of 18 civil society organizations in Aceh has lashed out at local clerics' interpretation of Shariah, which it says is unduly focused on women's clothing.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – A military prosecutor has lowered his demand for punishment from five years to less than 10 months in jail for a former intelligence officer who attacked a jo

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Aceh is fast becoming a key destination for firearms smuggled into and around the country, a human rights activist said on Tuesday.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – An antigraft watchdog has called for the acquittal of two men facing defamation charges in Central Aceh, saying they were just doing their jobs when they repo

People in Aceh province are advised against festive New Year's Eve celebrations, including the use of fireworks and blowing on trumpets because it is against Sharia law.

Langsa, Aceh – Six years after the Indian Ocean tsunami swept more than 200,000 people to their death, Titik Yuniarti still clings to hope at least one of her children is alive.

The rebuilding of Aceh from the enormous destruction of the 2004 tsunami has been impressive, but the province continues to lag behind the rest of the nation in terms of poverty, life e

Christen Broecker – When President Obama went to Indonesia last month, he lauded its embrace of democracy in a speech at the University of Indonesia but made clear that equality was ess

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – If the Aceh legislature has its way, the province will soon have a supreme leader with the authority to dismiss the governor and disband the legislature.

Apriadi Gunawan, Medan – Refugees from the Aceh conflict era admitted to having been intimidated by "anti-relocation" figures, saying that threats had deterred them from moving from a p

Nurdin Hasan, Jantho, Indonesia – Two people received eight lashes each in Islamic Shariah law-controlled Aceh on Friday after being found engaging in an extramarital kiss.

"God will punish us by sending another great earthquake and tsunami if we don't uphold and enforce sharia [Islamic law] in this land," says a resident of Banda Aceh.

Nurdin Hasan & Nivell Rayda, Banda Aceh & Jakarta – Aceh's deputy governor and Shariah Police chief have dismissed a critical report on the province from an international human

These two laws deny people's right to make their own decisions about who they meet and what they wear. The laws, and their selective enforcement, are an invitation to abuse.

Jakarta – Two local Shariah laws in Indonesia's Aceh province violate rights and are often enforced abusively by public officials and even private individuals, Human Rights Watch said i

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Islamic boarding schools, called dayah in Aceh, are not just for the pious.

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Hundreds of angry villagers in Manggi, West Aceh, on Saturday raided a subdistrict police station they believed was being used as a brothel and attacked a nak

Nurdin Hasan & Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Banda Aceh & Jakarta – Seventy-eight civil society groups in Aceh have denounced a proposal to confer national hero status on former Pre

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – Opposition by ulema and councilors in Aceh to a woman becoming district head is reportedly weakening.