WUNRN
ACEH province of Indonesia is on the northern tip of the island
of Sumatra. Aceh, alone among Indonesia's provinces, has been authorized by
national law to implement local Sharia laws derived from the primary religious
sources of Islam.
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Human Rights Watch
Direct Link to Full 99-Page Report:
MULTIPLE GENDER THEMES IN REPORT
ACEH, INDONESIA - POLICING MORALITY
Abuses in the Application of Sharia
For this Report SHARIA is defined as
"a set of standards governing all aspects of life, derived primarily from
the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, and the hadiths, a collection
of sayings and descriptions of the sunna, or exemplary and normative conduct,
of the Prophet Muhammad."
LAW AGAINST KHALWAT (SECLUSION)
In Aceh today, it is a crime for two
mature people of different sexes who are not married or related by blood, to be
together in an isolated place.
ISLAMIC DRESS REQUIREMENTS
Another Acehnese law requires that
all Muslims in Aceh wear Islamic attire.....In practice, this means that Muslim
women are required to wear the Islamic headscarf in public at all times, and
are prohibited from wearing clothing that reveals the shape of the body. While
the law applies to both men and women, it places far more stringent
restrictions on women than it does on men and has a discriminatory impact.
Women constitute the overwhelming majority of those reprimanded pursuant to the
law.
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