Six couples were dragged to a public flogging spot in the capital Banda Aceh, with at least two women unable to walk after the painful punishment
THIS is the moment a Sharia Law whipping is meted out to a woman accused of sex before marriage.
Along with another female felon, she was today brutally beaten in front of a mob of Muslim men — some cheerfully filming the spectacle — in the Indonesian province.
The women — all subjected to an agonising whipping — were among six unmarried couples caught in a raid on a hotel in Indonesia's conservative Aceh province last year.
They were accused of “intimate” activity out of wedlock which is an offence under Sharia law.
Already they had served several months in prison.
But as part of the punishment the authorities unleashed violence and humiliation in public.
All this was under the gaze of a crowd of mostly men in the capital Banda Aceh.
It is the only province in the world's biggest Muslim-majority country that imposes Islamic law.
The head of the local public order agency, Marwan, who like many Indonesian goes by one name, said: “This law is designed to have a deterrent effect, not only for the offenders but for the spectators who watch the caning.”
He added: “The pain of being flogged is not that bad, the embarrassment is worse.”
Rights groups have slammed public caning as cruel and barbaric, while Indonesia's President Joko Widodo has called for it to stop.
But the practice has wide support among Aceh's mostly Muslim population — who are about 98 per cent of its five million residents practise Islam.
In December, two men caught having sex with underage girls. For this were whipped 100 times each.
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