The Wild World Of Aceh... Or Is It?

An Indonesian man faints after he was whipped in public on charges of engaging in sexual relations, in Aceh Timur December 5, 2019. — AFP pic

I read an article in MalayMail the other day, titled Indonesian faints during whipping for Shariah-banned sex. Basically, a guy in Aceh, Indonesia had sex with another woman outside of wedlock, got busted by the local Sharia police, and was sentenced to 100 strokes of the cane.

In a typical hudud-style sentencing at the northern Sumatran region, the caning was done in public in the hope to deter onlookers from committing the same ‘crime’. Interestingly, around 500 spectators also yelled “harder, harder”, indicating that they wanted to see some strong canings.

Now here is where it got messed up. Apparently, the guy passed out halfway throughout the sentencing, undoubtedly due to severe pain from the caning. He was given a brief medical attention and revived, only for his caning to be continued. Only after his sentence was completed that he was taken to the hospital.

That’s… really disturbing. I get it, having a sexual intercourse outside of marriage is a taboo not only in Indonesia or Malaysia, but in a lot of Asian countries. This notion might be considered as conservative or backward in Western cultures, but this is still a belief practiced by a lot of developing countries. 

But I would never agree to 100 lashes for a victimless ‘crime’, much less in front of public. Now you may say the cane used in Aceh is unlike the one used in Malaysian caning – the one in Aceh is basically a thin rattan stick, similar to the one used by Malaysian teachers to punish naughty students – but I would still feel something is not right to publicly cane someone a hundred times in front of an audience.

(By the way, if you don’t know how Malaysian caning in prison looks like, see video below. I’d take Aceh-style caning any day over that thick rod they use in my country)

But… then I sort of changed my mind. Sort of.

See, the 100 lashes also apply to men who have sex with underage girls. Now I’m not sure what is the context here, whether it’s rape or consensual sex on both parties, but hell, if a grown man has sex with an underage girl, I’d say let’s beat the shit out of him. What the hell, might as well increase it to 1000 lashes. 

A man should never persuade a young girl to sleep with him. That’s just wrong, dude. That’s textbook pedophilia. And I have no remorse for sex offenders, even less towards men who assault or sway/coerce/persuade children into their liking.

And, caning is also sentenced to poachers who threaten endangered wildlife such as tigers and orangutans. Of course! Maybe this will keep those damn poachers at bay and think twice before killing innocent animals for their own wallets. The current punishments for poachers clearly are not deterring them, so maybe Aceh is on to something in protecting their wildlife.

So maybe I don’t fully disagree with public caning. If it’s an offence that does not necessarily has a victim, then I don’t see the point in doing it. The offenders or would-be offenders would probably just simply leave the region and escape the local judicial system. 

It also provides a window of what it could be in Malaysia, if religious extremism begins to take root here and let flourish. Just a few weeks ago, some guys in Terengganu, which is a conservative state at the Peninsula’s east coast, was jailed for a month because… they didn’t perform their Friday prayers.

Personally, that is kind of funny. I thought punishing people for not attending Friday prayers is a thing only conducted in boarding schools (which I went to). So is Terengganu going to be a giant sekolah asrama now?

(And honestly, the caning in Aceh looks like an asrama-style caning at best, only that it brings it up a notch.Yes I was caned a lot when I was in school hahaha)

It’s funny now, but let’s see if Aceh-style sentencing will be adopted by the East Coast states (since I can see the similarities in both regions’ conservatism levels) and if that happens, I don’t think it would be funny then.