MUHAMMAD Rizal, the head of Sharia police, said that men and women are punished equally. But floggings of women have especially caught international attention.
In 2014, the Sharia police flogged a 25-year-old woman for adultery even though she was handed over to them by vigilantes who gang-raped her and doused her with the sewage water. Early last year, a woman was flogged 100 times for adultery while the man involved, who denied the accusations, received just 15 lashes.
“The fact that the woman had already collapsed once and was still forced to undergo more flogging shows a complete lack of compassion and care for her well-being and health,” Amnesty International Indonesia said of the incident early this year. “Both the use of flogging as a punishment and the criminalization of sexual relations outside marriage are clear violations of international human rights law.”
The rights group also called flogging a “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” that “may amount to torture.”
The Qanun Jinayat, or Aceh’s Islamic criminal code, sets out legal punishments that prescribe imprisonment and fines apart from flogging. But human rights reports found that flogging is indiscriminately used. Rizal said that floggings aren’t random and only follow investigations and trials.
“If the investigation doesn’t turn up enough evidence, the person is free,” he said. “If not, then we arrest and the court decides the punishment.”
When asked for data, the Sharia police station in Banda Aceh said it didn’t have records of the number of floggings they had conducted in recent years. But one human rights report shows 428 floggings in 2013, followed by 515 in 2014 and 548 in 2015 across Aceh.
In 2019, the Aceh police released a budget report that showed that each flogging costs the provincial government nearly $1,000 (Rp15 million), which includes food arrangements and facilitating security, health officers, and witnesses. Aceh is one of Indonesia’s poorest provinces, and this kind of spending has irked local activists.
“The court process is not even transparent so we don’t know what goes on in the trials that prescribe floggings,” Raihal Farjri, a women’s rights activist in Banda Aceh, told VICE World News.
A report by Indonesian researcher Dina Afrianty also found Aceh’s Sharia courts don’t meet the principles of justice. “Many decisions [by the judges] include a checklist of personal attire, such as underwear, leggings, and bras,” the report states. “The system appears designed to shame and humiliate, demonstrating an unpleasant obsession in the community with sexual activity at the expense of other more serious social concerns.”
Farjri said that floggings disproportionately impact women accused. “I’ve seen men walk away after floggings with smiles and relief on their faces,” she said. “But women face social ostracisation because patriarchy instills shame in them. The media blames them too.”
In 2012, a teenage girl died by suicide after she was apprehended by the Sharia police in public and accused of prostitution. Farjri recounted another case where a young woman died by suicide after she was flogged on charges of having a boyfriend.
“Women, sometimes, have to leave their villages because of this social stigma,” she added.
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ACEHNESE women and local NGOs have been campaigning to revise Qanun Jinayat, which was originally implemented to address sexual violence. The province has a long history of sexual violence against women, particularly during the armed conflict that is estimated to have killed 15,000 between 1976 and 2003. Aceh is peaceful now but the scars of sexual violence are still raw.
Data shared by the Sharia police shows only two cases of sexual violence between 2016 and 2021. The majority of crimes, according to the police, are those against morality.
But activists say official data belies the bigger problem of sexual violence. “Sexual violence is rising and flogging doesn’t change that,” said Farjri. “The government should revise the Sharia regulations.”
To local activists, flogging for sex crimes isn’t a deterrent.
“The floggings are too mild a punishment,” said Azharul Husna, the media coordinator of Kontras Aceh (The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence).
“Most male perpetrators prefer flogging to jail time because once it’s done, they can go back home, often to a place where the victim is still living. Some perpetrators with connections can even turn the verdict in their favor and choose flogging. It’s completely ineffective.”
The global outrage around flogging, Husna added, is a distraction from the critical shortcomings of Qanun Jinayat, which they are fighting. For instance, it doesn’t recognize sexual violence apart from rape and sexual harassment. The Sharia punishments also override Indonesia’s historic sexual violence crimes law that was passed this year. That law expands the definition of sexual violence to include abuse such as forced contraception, non-physical abuse, and sexual slavery and enforced harsher imprisonments for those charged.
Farjri said that international media misses their actual struggle because of global Islamophobia.
“When they look at Aceh’s flogging, they talk about Islam, the Sharia law, and the supposed oppression of women,” she said. “Look at countries that give out death penalties or 100-year prison sentences. Or Duterte and the people who died in his war on drugs. Those are so much worse than flogging. Do people bring up religion then?”
Farjri said that lasting change will only happen if people focus on the core problems of injustice and inequality.
“I have hopes that one day, the Qanun will be revised and women and children will be better protected,” she said, “But people need to look beyond religion and address the structural issues of Sharia punishments instead.”
PALLAVI PUNDIR (VICE)
This story was first published on VICE, on collaboration with Tempo English. It was produced with support from the Round Earth Media program of the International Women’s Media Foundation.
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