Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Responding to a public outcry over the bylaw that mandates stoning to death for adulterers, Aceh Legislative Council members have agreed to review the Islamic criminal code endorsed by previous councilors in September, a provincial lawmaker said on Tuesday.
"Qanun Jinayat is still controversial and the Acehnese people are not ready for it, they need a better understanding of their religion," said Hasbi Abdullah, acting council chairman, referring to Aceh's Islamic criminal code bylaw.
Abdullah, an Aceh Party lawmaker tipped to lead the provincial legislature for the next five years, said current councilors were generally against the bylaw and eager to revise it. The Aceh Party, which was set up by former leaders of the now defunct Free Aceh Movement, controls the local legislature.
On Sept. 14, the legislative council passed into law the controversial bylaw that calls for stoning adulterers to death and 100 lashes to be delivered for premarital sex.
It also mandates punishment for rapists, molesters, users of alcohol and gamblers, as well as people who are caught alone with persons of the opposite sex who are not their immediate family.
The bylaw received considerable opposition from human rights organizations in Aceh and abroad, claiming that the law violated human rights. Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf has refused to sign it.
Muslim Ibrahim, chair of the Aceh Ulema Assembly, has asked the government and councilors to revise clauses that sparked the controversy and publicly announce the articles that both the government and the legislature agree on.
Ibrahim said it was not an easy matter to dole out punishment by stoning and the bylaw would need to have the procedures clearly laid out. "The mechanism should be clear so that there is no longer any doubt [as to the appropriateness of the sentence]," he said.
"There is no Muslim who is opposed [to the law], especially because it is God's law. It's just a matter of time, whether to implement it now or in the future. The important thing is to first fulfill the rights of Muslims."
He said that Islam does not focus on the punishment itself. "It gives Islam grief to have to sentence a person," said Ibrahim, who is also a professor at Ar Raniry Institute of Islamic Studies.
However, a council member from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Moharriadi Syafari, said the bylaw would come into effect 30 days after it was passed regardless of the governor's refusal to endorse it.
Syafari advised people who are against the bylaw to apply for judicial review to the Constitutional Court. "If a revision is to be made by the zAceh legislature, it has to wait for a year. That's the rule," he said.