Banda Aceh – Indonesia's first Islamic courts for criminal cases were opened in the staunchly Muslim Aceh province on Tuesday as part of efforts to calm separatist passions in the area.
The sharia courts in Aceh are upgrades of the province's existing 19 religious courts, a legal institution set up across Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, to handle marriage or inheritance-related matters, but not criminal cases.
In some countries, sharia law includes stoning to death for adultery and amputating hands for theft. An expert said that was unlikely to come any time soon in Indonesia, but did not rule it out as an eventual possibility.
"If there is a thought that [those punishments] can be implemented straight after the establishment of the sharia court that is a wrong idea. Stoning and amputating will not be imposed just like that," said Hakim Nyak Pha, a legal expert from the Aceh Tradition Institute and Syiah Kuala University.
"It can happen but it would take some arduous processes." The head of Aceh Legal Aid, lawyer Rufriadi, told Reuters: "I say it is quite impossible because it will breed resistance. How can worshipping be so repressive? It's about us and God, isn't it?" He said if such harsh punishments were ultimately legalised he doubted they would ever be imposed in practice.
Jakarta allowed the establishment of the sharia courts in Aceh, where thousands have died in a decades-long simmering rebellion, as part of an autonomy package announced in 2001 that gave more powers to authorities in the province, including freedom to impose Islamic laws on Muslims. There is no plan to set up similar courts in other provinces.
Some 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim, but Islam here has long been a more moderate version of that practised in the Middle East, after blending with traditional cultures across the main island of Java and other parts of the country.
"The establishment of the sharia court will indeed affect our legal system, our ways of life in this nation. But we believe due to the trust we have among us ... the sharia court will develop nicely" in Aceh, said Indonesian Supreme Court chief justice Bagir Manan in a speech at the opening. However, Aceh's local government has only completed the sharia-based regulations for Islamic institutions while rules on punishment for vice and serious crimes are still being drafted.
Indonesia has been striving for decades to keep Aceh – on the northern tip of Sumatra island, some 1,700 km from Jakarta and with a long tradition of separatism – part of the country.
A peace agreement in December between Indonesia's military and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels has sharply reduced the violence, but many say it remains to be seen if it will hold.
Some analysts say implementing sharia law is not that high on the list of what Acehnese want from Jakarta.
"This is merely ceremonial. Some people want to position the Aceh problem as a religious one, not a human rights one nor an issue of injustice," said Indra Jaya Piliang, a political analyst at the Centre of Strategic and International Studies. "What the Acehnese want is a regulation to determine their own leaders ... their future. This is being delayed by the elite."