(24 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Banda Aceh, Indonesia – 24 February 2025
1. Various of gay couple, each handcuffed to an escort, getting out of prison van and walking towards courtroom escorted by police
2. Wide exterior of Banda Aceh courthouse
3. Mid of courtroom sign
4. Mid of defendant sitting in front of judge
5. Mid of defendant’s lawyer sitting at table listening
6. Court visitors
7. Mid of judge reading verdict, defendant standing
8. SOUNDBITE (Indonesian) Sakwanah (goes by single name), head judge:
"Sentencing defendant to 85 lashes."
9. Mid of prosecutor
10. SOUNDBITE (Indonesian) Alfian (goes by single name), prosecutor:
"The judge has handed down verdict according to our expectations, so we are satisfied with this verdict. Journalist asking: "Why are the sentences for defendants different?"
Alfian: "Indeed, the sentences are different because their roles are different."
11. Zoom in of prosecutor handcuffing couple
12. Various of couple walking out of courtroom in handcuffs, escorted by police
STORYLINE:
An Islamic Shariah court in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province on Monday sentenced two men to public caning for having gay sex.
The couple, aged 24 and 18, were arrested on Nov. 7, after neighborhood vigilantes in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, suspected them of being gay and broke into their rented room to catch them naked and hugging each other.
The lead judge said that the two college students were “legally and convincingly" proven to have had gay sex and would receive 85 and 80 strokes respectively.
“During the trial it was proven that the defendants committed illicit acts, including kissing and having sex," said the judge, Sakwanah, who goes by a single name like many Indonesians.
”As Muslims, the defendants should uphold the Shariah law that prevails in Aceh," she added.
She said the three-judge panel decided against imposing the maximum sentence of 100 lashes because the men were outstanding students who were polite in court, cooperated with authorities and had no previous convictions.
Prosecutors previously demanded each get 80 strokes, but the judges decided on a harsher punishment for the older man because they believed that he was the one who had encouraged and provided a place for sexual relations.
Both prosecutors and the lawyers for the two men said they accepted the sentence and will not appeal.
Aceh is considered more devout than other areas of Muslim-majority Indonesia and is the only province allowed to observe a version of Islamic Shariah law.
Indonesia’s secular central government granted Aceh the right to implement Islamic Shariah law in 2006 as part of a peace deal to end a separatist war.
A religious police and court system have been established, and the new law is a significant strengthening of Shariah in the region. Each year since then, more than 100 people have been publicly caned.
Aceh implemented an expansion of Islamic bylaws and criminal code in 2015 that extended Shariah law to the province’s non-Muslims, who account for about 1% of the population, and allows up to 100 lashes for morality offenses including gay sex and sex between unmarried people.
This will be the third time that Aceh has caned people for homosexuality.
Caning is also a punishment in Aceh for gambling, drinking alcohol, women who wear tight clothes and men who skip Friday prayers.
Human rights groups have criticized the law, saying it violates international treaties signed by Indonesia protecting the rights of minorities.
AP video shot by Taufik Kelana
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