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Gays face caning in Aceh if bill is passed
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MEN and women caught having homosexual sex could be publicly caned in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh Province if an Islam-inspired draft law is approved this week.
Lawmaker Moharriadi Syafari said a majority of provincial lawmakers supported criminalizing gay sex. They are debating the law with a view to pass it and several others regulating personal behavior before Friday, the last day of the current assembly.
Gay rights activist King Oey said he would urge the central government to try and use its influence to get the bill scrapped or appeal to the country’s constitutional court. “There is no room to talk about this democratically in Aceh because once someone expresses an objection he or she will immediately be branded ‘anti-Islam,’” he said. “The only way to stop it is by the national level, particularly at the level of the minister of home affairs.”
If the law is passed by the 63-member assembly, the Aceh governor will have to sign it before it can be implemented.
Indonesia’s secular central government granted Aceh the right to implement a version of Islamic Shariah law in 2006 as part of a peace deal to end a separatist war. A religious police and court system has been established.
The central government doesn’t have the power to strike down a provincial law, but it can ask Aceh to reconsider laws. The region already canes people found guilty of adultery, gambling and consuming alcohol.
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