A woman was publicly caned in the Islamic Sharia law-dominated Aceh province of Indonesia after being accused of kissing her partner during a social media livestream.
She was reportedly the first person in the area to receive the punishment for such actions online and her male partner was also caned, according to a Daily Mail article published Thursday.
The outlet said the woman was accused of “committing obscenity live with a man on social media” and photos showed the young woman, whose head and body were covered, kneeling as another person stood next to her holding the cane used to whip the accused.
Video footage recorded at the scene showed the woman’s face contorting in pain as she kneeled:
She eventually collapsed as those at the scene watched:
“Aceh’s Sharia court ordered the two people to be whipped with a rattan cane 21 times each for kissing without being married,” NBC News reported Thursday. “At least a hundred people witnessed the caning, carried out by a group of people wearing robes and hoods on a stage in Bustanussalatin City Park in Banda Aceh.”
The couple “were arrested in April after a Feb. 27 livestream in which they kissed in a car in Banda Aceh went viral and prompted reports to local Sharia authorities,” the outlet continued.
The couple’s initial sentence was 25 lashes but was reduced to 21 because they had already been in prison for several months prior to the public abuse that crowds gather to witness and photograph.
The city’s police leader, Muhammad Rizal, claimed it was the first time in the area a couple were punished for violating sharia law through a social media platform, according to the Mail article.
In 2020, the Aceh province introduced an all-women flogging squad whose job it was to punish women who violated Sharia law, Breitbart News reported.
“Local authorities deemed it necessary to create an all-women squad to punish an allegedly growing number of Sharia crimes such as premarital sex, which they blamed on the internet and ‘Western culture,’” the article said.
The Islamic State also formed an-all female brigade to enforce the Islamic law in Syria in 2014, according to Breitbart News.
Islamic leaders in Aceh province have destroyed Christian churches and imposed separation of the sexes in educational institutions.
“Flogging is common for a range of offenses in the region at the tip of Sumatra island, including gambling, drinking alcohol, and having gay sex,” Breitbart News reported in 2019. “It is the only province in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country that imposes Islamic law and uses caning as a public humiliation.”