Jakarta – Human rights activists and legislators have condemned the Aceh Legislative Council's (DPRD) plan to pass a regional bill that would see those found guilty of "ethical" crimes, such as adultery, stoned in public.
"Stoning is constitutionally baseless. Such punishment is cruel, inhuman and degrades the value of humanity," Usman Hamid, the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
"Every single human being has non-negotiable human rights, such as the right to not be abused or treated cruelly," he added.
The Aceh DPRD plans to pass the bill on Monday. Anyone who is found guilty of committing adultery, by a sharia court, will be stoned.
This bill is another attempt to more seriously implement sharia law in the autonomous region. Sharia law stipulates that a person convicted of committing adultry must be buried neck deep before the public is permitted to stone them to death.
Mahfudz Siddiq, the chairman of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction at the House of Representatives, said that the punishment needed to be introduced into the society.
"This idea needs to be elaborated further. The Aceh administration needs to talk with other fellow civil organizations," he said. "It should be proven that the law positively impacts on the society before it is passed," he added.
Azis Syamsudin, a House legislator from the Golkar Party, said stoning was illegal in Indonesia.
"There is no regulation that allows stoning. That kind of punishment is abusive," he said. "It is totally against basic human rights. People should realize that punishments are not only aimed to punish, but also to educate the society," he added.
Under the bill, unmarried people of the opposite sex found guilty of socializing in private would be caned one hundred times, and married persons found guilty of adultery would be stoned to death.
The new Islamic criminal law would also regulate sentences for individuals and entities that abet others in committing adultery, such as beauty salons, motels and hotels. The proposed law would not cover murder, robbery, corruption or other crimes.
On Tuesday, students grouped together as the Communication Forum for Sharia staged a rally in Banda Aceh to demand a stricter form of jinayat, or Islamic criminal law.
In response, senior legislator Rayhan Iskandar said the Aceh legislative council was reviewing the jinayat bill and promised to pass it into law soon.
Should the law be endorsed, it would make Aceh the only province in Indonesia with its own legal system, equivalent to the criminal code, based on Islam. Aceh has so far only partially adopted sharia law, which makes praying five times a day, fasting during Ramadan, giving alms to the poor and dressing modestly mandatory for the province's Muslims.
Sharia was implemented under a broad autonomy package granted by the central government in 2001 to pacify demands for independence in the region. (hdt)