TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Regulations, as the term implies, are meant to regulate so as to enable an environment of law and order. But what has happened in Aceh since the provincial law on Sharia was enacted has been to create controversy. A number of incidents at Lhok Banie in the district of West Langsa early this month illustrate clearly the proverbial Pandora's box opened by the religious laws.
Eight Langsa residents raided the home of a woman suspected of having illicit relations with a man. The man was beaten up and the woman gang-raped by the men who conducted the raid, ostensibly in the name enforcing the law. The Langsa Sharia office stated that the suspected adulterous pair would have to face a punishment of public whipping for their sin.
What followed was a storm of public criticism on social media over the dastardly mob justice. The police have arrested three of the alleged rapists including a 15-year-old boy while the other five are still on the run. The puzzling question raised is, why must a woman who has been charged with adultery and gang-raped by eight men face punishment by public caning? The source of this mob justice is Aceh Provincial Regulation or Qanun (religious canon) No. 14/2003 on Khalwat (non-permissible close proximity between unrelated men and women according to religious Muslim law). This particular canon refers to Law No. 44/1999 and Law No. 18/2001, on the execution of Sharia law. Aceh is the only province in Indonesia to implement Muslim Sharia Law.
Moral violations, including gambling, drinking alcohol and khalwat, are punishable by caning in public, in addition to paying a fine. This is one particular law that has often put Aceh under the national as well as international spotlight. As an example of how Sharia can be the cause of much disorder, are the three separate legal cases arising out of the incident in Langsa. First of all is the suspected case of adultery, second, the attack of the eight men against the pair and third, the men who gang-raped the woman.
To the critics, the public caning faced by the woman especially after she has been gang-raped is beyond anything human. The National Commission on Human Rights once set up a special team in 2010 to study Sharia in Aceh and found some of the canons to be very problematic. So, the next question is whether the remaining five rapists will seriously be brought to justice. Still, the most sensitive issue is whether the punishment by public caning adopted in Aceh through its Sharia canons, contradicts higher legislation, or even the Constitution itself.
Since public caning as a form of punishment was legalized in Aceh in 2005, condemnation has rained on the province from inside and outside the country, even from progressive people within Aceh itself. Yet the arguments vary. Historical records reveal that the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) never negotiated for Sharia to be a condition of peace. Most importantly and undeniably, Sharia's canons often lead to the criminalization of women and minority groups.
It must also be remembered that the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the Indonesian government has ratified, clearly states that physical punishment is a form of human rights violation. This magazine suggests that a mechanism be found to assess the regulations on provincial laws and revise Law No. 11/2006 on the Aceh Government and Law No. 32/2004 on Regional Government.
This step must be taken to enforce the citizen's constitutional right, and citizens of Aceh are no exception. (*)
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