Jakarta – Some 90% of people in Indonesia's Aceh province say they agree with Islamic laws that punish gamblers with caning and force women to cover their heads in public, according to an opinion poll released Thursday.

Aceh is the first province in secular but Muslim-majority Indonesia to be allowed to implement laws based on the Islamic legal code, or Sharia.

Religious police currently enforce laws criminalizing consumption and sale of alcohol, gambling, non-Islamic dress and illicit relations between men and women. Punishment is either by fines, short prison terms or light caning.

Some 90% of respondents in a poll by the respected Indonesian Survey Circle said the laws were "in line with their wishes."

The survey was conducted based on face-to-face interviews with 440 respondents in mid-July, with a margin error of approximately 4.8 percentage points.

The implementation of the laws is being watched closely by other provinces in Indonesia that want to introduce similar laws. Members of the country's Christian minority as well as some moderate Muslims have expressed concerns about the development.

Aceh – which lost some 131,000 people to the 2004 Asian tsunami – is the most Islamic Indonesian province, but foreigners and Christians have always been welcome there.

Some local women's rights activists have said they don't agree with the laws, but fear speaking out against them because in doing so they may be portrayed as anti-Islam.