Tom Allard, Jakarta – Religious conservatives in Aceh are trying to ram through Islamic laws that would allow stoning to death for adulterers and public lashings for those who engage in premarital sex.

The laws are likely to be voted next week by the provincial legislature in Aceh, just weeks before a new, pro-secular government takes control of the parliament.

Adulterers who are single would be whipped 100 times in public while a married person who committed the same act would be stoned to death. Even consenting adults who are not married but have sex would be caned.

"It's a complete humiliation for us Acehnese," said Nurul Achmal, from the committee for the resurrection of Acehnese women.

Aceh is renowned for its strict adherence to Islam. It was the first region in Indonesia to adopt the religion and is known as the "veranda of Mecca" due to the role Arab seafarers played in spreading the religion to Asia from Aceh.

After five years of sharia in which gamblers received public canings and a sharia police force demanded women wear the veil, the appeal of sharia has waned.

In April, Partai Aceh, comprising former independence fighters, won at the first elections held since the province gained formal autonomy from Jakarta following a peace deal in 2005.

It ran on a secular platform and wants to unwind aspects of sharia that have been enforced with less rigour in recent times as the budget of the sharia police was trimmed. But Partai Aceh will not take up power until next month and conservatives are pushing the laws before the changeover.

Opinion remains divided on whether they will be passed. Ms Achmal believes they will, as does Raihan Iskander, from the Muslim Prosperous Justice Party.

But a renowned Indonesian observer who spends a lot of time in Aceh, Harold Crouch, was more sceptical. "I think there are enough people in the old parliament who will be worried about it... I don't think it will happen."

A resident of Banda Aceh, who asked not to be named, told the Herald: "There have been sharia police and a prosecutor who committed adultery but were never whipped. Only ordinary people or poor ones get whipped."