Human rights activists are speaking out after an Indonesian couple suspected of having an affair was paraded through the street naked, tied to a pole and flogged.
The Jakarta Globe reported:
A human rights activist on Thursday slammed the humiliating punishment meted out to a teacher in Aceh Barat and the married woman he was suspected of having an affair with after the pair were marched through a village naked, tied to a pole and then brutally beaten.
“To parade people around naked is not sanctioned in Islam,” said Zulfikar Muhammad, an activist from a coalition of human rights organizations in the staunchly Muslim province.
“The acts of the villagers who paraded the two through a village clearly violates both Islamic Shariah law and human rights. Islam upholds justice and the rights of human beings.”
Zulfikar’s statement comes after T Abdurrazak, operational commander of Aceh’s feared Shariah Police, confirmed on Thursday that the teacher, identified as Bus, 36, and was reportedly from an Islamic boarding school in Aceh Besar, had been caught in the bedroom of Yus, a 28-year-old housewife, in Seuneubok village, Meulaboh district, on Wednesday. The case is being dealt with by Aceh Barat Police.
Villagers had suspected for at least a year that the couple were having an affair, Abdurrazak said, adding that Yus’s husband was seldom at home because his job required him to travel out of town extensively.
The pair now face nine lashes each in public, police said.