Bad news for married adulterers: The Aceh Regional House of Representatives has passed a law [1] that imposes a death penalty for married adulterers. The guilty persons will be stoned to death.
Bad news too for unmarried adulterers and homosexuals: Aceh’s new law provides a punishment of 100 lashes with a cane and a fine of 100 grams of pure gold for guilty individuals.
Aceh is an autonomous province of Indonesia which enforces the Sharia law. Indonesia is the most populous Muslim-dominated country in the world.
The RAB Experience reviews [2] the controversial new law and identifies its relevant provisions:
Stoning is the sentence for those that knowingly commit adultery. However, this only applies to those who are married and knowingly commit this offense. For those that are unmarried, the punishment is up to 100 lashings with a cane. One of the accepted forms of evidence of adultery is a sworn oath that requires the oath maker to acknowledge that if they lie they will be damned in both this life and the afterlife.
Funnily enough, not that there is anything funny about this Qanun (Regional Regulation), a woman who is pregnant outside of wedlock cannot be accused of adultery without sufficient evidence of her crime.
The Qanun also deals with rape. Rape includes anal and oral sex. However, somewhat disturbingly the definition implies that rape cannot occur between a husband and a wife.
The other interesting aspect of this Qanun is that it provides for criminal fines to be paid in grams of pure gold. For example, if you get caught in the act of Liwath or Musahaqah, then the penalty is 100 lashes of the cane and a fine of 1000 grams of pure gold or 100 months in jail.
binsar pakpahan believes the “irrational” law [3] is not suitable for Indonesia:
I found this news very disturbing. In my opinion this particular implementation of the law is more in of a political strategy of people who are going to be out of the legislation position to gain more popularity for the sake of their future stake in their own political parties. This also brings another negative story for the majority of Indonesian moderate Muslim. I know most of my Muslim friends, if not all, will find this law stupid, irrational, badly enforced, and totally not suitable for Indonesia.
Twitter reactions from Jakarta, Indonesia:
tobybudiartono [4]: I wont b goin to Aceh anytime soon now!
tommysiahaan [5]: Why r we goin bckwards??
dHeeLicious [6]: I think it's against the human rights
ohhvi [7]: Aceh's stoning and caning bill: I thought this only exists in my old testament bible. Pinch, am I in 2009 or 2000 Before Christ?
yogibeau [8]: BOOOOO! i swear to God i never wana go there
erdina [9]: And things become much scarier in Aceh
erdina [10]: I keep on shaking my head in disbelief whenever I read abt Aceh's plan to pass the stoning bill. How did we let this happen?
Rights groups [11] also criticized the new law as “cruel and degrading to humanity.”