WUNRN
Aceh is a special region of Indonesia.
The province is located at the northern end of Sumatra. Its
capital is Banda
Aceh. It has the highest proportion of Muslims in Indonesia, who mostly
live according to Sharia
customs and laws.[3]
In 1959, the Indonesian government attempted to placate the Acehnese by
offering wide-ranging freedom in matters relating to religion, education and
culture.
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Call for Action by Amnesty
International:
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INDONESIA-ACEH - WOMAN GANG RAPED TO
BE CANED FOR ADULTERY
A
masked and hooded person canes a woman in Aceh for selling food during Ramadan.
A woman who was gang raped last week faces the indignity of a public caning for
having extramarital sex. (AFP Photo/Chaideer Mahyuddin)
By Nurdin Hasan & Kennial Caroline Laia -
May 07, 2014
“We want the couple to be caned because they violated
the religious bylaw on sexual relations,” Ibrahim Latif, the head of the
Shariah office in the eastern town of Langsa, said of the woman and her
companion, a 40-year-old married man, who were raided by a group of men last
Wednesday night at the woman’s home.
The woman was raped by the eight vigilantes, three of
whom have since been arrested. Her companion was tied up and beaten. The pair
were also doused with sewage by the attackers, who later took them to the
Shariah police, or Wilayatul Hisbah.
Ibrahim said the fact that the woman had been raped
would not be taken into consideration in determining the punishment for the
religious crime that she was accused of committing.
“They have to be [caned] as a form of justice because
the rapists will also be processed, but in a criminal court,” he said.
“Besides, they’ve confessed to having sex on several previous occasions, even
though the man is married and has five children.”
Langsa Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Hariadi and the
chief of detectives Adj. Comr. M. Firdaus were not immediately available for
comment.
Under the partial Shariah exercised in Aceh, the woman
and her companion face up to nine strokes of the cane each. The rapists would
have faced the same number of lashes had they been dragged through the Shariah
process.
Three of them, including a 13-year-old boy, have been
arrested by police, who are still hunting for the five others.
They are accused of gang raping the woman after
barging into her house late last Wednesday and accusing her of having illegal
sexual relations with the man.
After assaulting the man and raping the woman, they
marched the pair to the Shariah police. It was only during their interrogation
of the victim that officers found out she had been raped.
‘Harsher punishments’
An official from Nahdlatul Ulama, the country’s
largest Islamic organization, has backed the call to cane the couple, but says
the rapists must also face Shariah charges in addition to criminal ones.
Teungku Faisal Ali, the head of the NU’s Aceh chapter,
told the Jakarta Globe that “the punishment for the mob that raped the victim
must be much harsher because they have set back efforts to uphold Shariah in
Aceh.”
He also urged residents to leave Shariah enforcement
up to the WH and not enforce the regulations themselves.
“If anyone sees any violation of Shariah, they must
report it to the Shariah police, in accordance with the prevailing standards
and procedures,” Faisal said.
He bemoaned what he called the increasing prevalence
of mob violence in Aceh, particularly against those accused of Shariah
violations.
This is not the first case in Aceh of a rape being
committed against a woman accused of inappropriate conduct with an unrelated
male.
A 20-year-old university student was raped by three Shariah police officers in
Langsa in January 2010 after being caught riding on a motorcycle with her
boyfriend.
The town’s Shariah police chief, Syahril, was
subsequently fired and two of the perpetrators were later sentenced to serve eight years in prison
each. The third perpetrator has not been caught.
Different laws
Ismail Hasani, a scholar at
“When we talk about law in Aceh, we talk about three
different systems that are not clearly delineated: common law, Shariah law and
national law. There is no boundary,” he said. “Looking at this case, based on
common law, the woman, even though she is a victim, still has to accept
punishment. But when we take the national law perspective, she primarily is a
victim who needs protection.”
Ismail, who is a program manager at the Setara
Institute for Democracy and Peace, said that Aceh’s Shariah law system was
dangerous in the sense that it had lead to victim blaming.
He said it was unjust to view the woman only as a
suspected adulterer after what she had been through.
“This is also a case of rape. She has rights,” he
said. “This is hypocrisy which is fostered continuously by Acehnese elites with
a political view of Islam.
“Sure, the law has to be enforced, but a punishment
like caning is excessive…. The punishment is imposed based on sexual
imagination instead of legal facts,” he said. “Historically, caning in Islam is
implemented strictly based on strong evidence. But in Aceh, it is done
arbitrarily. The enforcement of the Shariah law is done based on prejudice and
even for political reasons.”
Central government’s role
Arimbi Heroepoetri of the National Commission on
Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) said the difference between rape and
adultery should be made clear.
“And law enforcers must understand that the woman, as
a gang-rape victim, must be traumatized,” she said. “The rape case must be
prioritized. This issue of sexual abuse is urgent. They cannot leave the
problem unsolved for too long.”
She said that the survivor needed healing, not
punishment.
“She cannot just be caned right after being raped by
eight men,” she said.
Ismail said that the unfair implementation of Shariah
law could lead to widespread legal discrimination.
“There has to be a clear stance from the central
government. We should not see the special autonomy of Aceh [which allows it to
implement partial Shariah law] as special autonomy without boundaries,” he
said. “Not every citizen in Aceh agrees with the current legal system. Some of
them are being repressed by the law. So there has to be a debate among citizens
and with the regional government in order to formulate a more humane Islamic
law.
“We have to remember that justice is everyone’s right, and it is not happening at the moment in Aceh.”
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