Michael Bachelard, Jakarta – Gay sex and sex outside marriage in the Indonesian province of Aceh will be punishable by 100 lashes of the cane under new laws passed by the local parliament.
Even non-Muslim tourists to Indonesia's westernmost province are subject to the sharia law penalty in a step rights groups have described as an "enormous step backwards".
The Aceh Islamic Criminal Code is a by-law of the provincial parliament – the only district of Indonesia with authority to enact sharia provisions in the criminal law.
It now explicitly makes it a criminal act for men to have anal sex with each other, and for women to "rub together body parts for stimulation". Being alone with someone of the opposite sex who is neither a marriage partner nor a relative is also punishable by caning.
Party Aceh, the dominant political movement that sprung from the former separatist army of Aceh, backed the sharia law, saying ordinary people in the province were calling for it.
It is the same province where woman are punished for not wearing headscarves, and where, in some areas, they are required to ride side-saddle on motorcycles.
It's also the province where a vigilante group of eight local men and boys earlier this year allegedly gang-raped a woman they accused of having sex with a married man, then presented her to the sharia police for further punishment.
The sharia police investigated her "crime" before dropping the charges. The alleged rapists will face criminal sanction through the secular courts for their actions.
Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Director Richard Bennett said Aceh's new laws, passed on Saturday, would be used "disproportionately to police and punish women's choices". "They also act as a deterrent to women reporting rape and sexual violence who may fear being accused of sex outside marriage," he said.
Indonesia more broadly does not criminalise homosexuality, he said, but Aceh's new law was a "huge blow for equality" and would "add to the climate of homophobia, fear and harassment many in Aceh are already facing".
Aceh has caned 156 people in public ceremonies – usually after Friday prayers – since 2010. Most are punished for gambling and drinking, but others have been punished for "khalwat", or consorting with members of the opposite sex.
Sharia law was introduced in Aceh, which is known as the "verandah of Mecca", in 2001, as the central government tried to co-opt religious leaders in the fight against the separatist insurgency. That insurgency only ended in a 2005 agreement, the year after the Boxing Day tsunami devastated the region in 2004.