Married people who commit adultery could be stoned to death under new law unanimously passed on Monday by MPs in the devoutly Muslim Indonesian province of Aceh. The law, which will come into effect in 30 days, also decrees that homosexuals could be caned and jailed for eight years. Those convicted of rape or consuming alcohol could be face up to 200 lashes of the cane meted out in public.The 69-seat house in the semi-autonomous province voiced no reservations over the new law, an extension of the Sharia code already in force. Gambling and drinking were already banned after Aceh introduced elements of Sharia law in 2001, when it became compulsory for women to wear headscarves. Dozens of people deemed to have broken the law have been caned in public by the local Sharia police.
Aceh, the place where Islam first arrived in Indonesia from Saudi Arabia, suffered a long-running separatist insurgency that killed thousands. It only ended in 2005 in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami that wrought havoc on Aceh and killed as many as 160,000.
The new law imposes tough sentences and fines, to be paid in kilograms of gold, for rape and paedophilia. But the most severe article was on adultery, which orders that offending married couples can be punished by at least 100 lashes, up to the harshest punishment of being stoned to death.
The provincial government initially proposed the new law, but now opposes some of the new clauses added by parliament. But Bustanul Arifin, secretary of Aceh parliament's special committee for drafting the law, and a member of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), was unrepentant. "We feel that it is time now for people to understand the real meaning of Sharia," he said.