Jakarta: A 60-year-old Christian woman was whipped nearly 30 times for selling alcohol in Indonesia’s conservative Bandar Aceh, which fully enforced the Islamic Shariah law to safeguard human dignity.
The woman faced the caning before a crowd of hundreds that gathered in the province earlier this week. She was whipped along with a couple who faced about 100 lashes for committing adultery.
This is the first time that a non-Muslim person was punished under the Islamic criminal bylaw, which involves corporal punishment for breaching its laws.
Aceh is the only province in the Muslim-dominated country to adhere to Sharia law which puts it at odds with other provinces where the vast majority of the population practices a moderate form of Islam. The non-Muslims, however, can choose whether to be tried under Islamic law or the regular Indonesian criminal code.
Under the law, which has gradually taken effect since 2001, women were instructed to don the hijab and observe the Islamic dress code.
Last year, an Acehnese woman faced being caned by the Banda Aceh Sharia Police despite being a victim of rape.
