Banda Aceh - In Indonesia's Aceh province, stories about
young unmarried couples arrested by religious patrol officers make
frequent headlines in local newspapers with tabloids exposing details
of the offenders' sexual trysts.
Staunchly Muslim Aceh has imposed some aspects of sharia, or
Islamic law, since 2002 under an autonomy scheme granted by the
central government as part of attempts to pacify a clamour there for
independence.
A series of regulations, known as qanuns, criminalize consumption
and sale of alcoholic beverages, gambling and illicit relations
between men and women with caning the main punishment. Muslim women
are required to wear headscarves.
A government agency called the Wilayatul Hisbah was set up in 2003
to monitor the implementation of the regulations, but seven years
after Islamic law came into force, many Acehnese are critical of the
way it is being implemented.
Some Acehnese said the Wilayatul Hisbah focuses too much on
individual moral behaviour while others accused enforcers of ignoring
offenses committed by the rich and powerful.
'The way they implement sharia is so silly,' said Aprilia, a woman
who works for a government office in the provincial capital, Banda
Aceh. 'They only focused on arresting unmarried couples and don't
even bother gamblers anymore.'
'People with money can bribe their way out of trouble. For a few
million rupiah, you can get away,' she said, referring to the
Indonesian currency, 2 million of which is worth 175 dollars.
Another Acehnese criticized sharia patrol officers for what he
called their preferential treatment.
'I support sharia, but it seems to me it is only being enforced on
the poor,' said Wahdar, who sells mobile phone-reload vouchers.
'Rich people go to hotels and commit adultery, but they are never
arrested,' said the man who, like many Indonesians, goes by only one
name. 'Poor unmarried couples can only afford to go to the beach, and
that's where they get arrested.'
Critics said the anti-vice patrol by Wilayatul Hisbah officers
encourage people to report on their neighbours and promote a kind of
moral vigilantism.
In a front-page story on March 24, the Metro Aceh tabloid reported
that a man was beaten up by villagers after he was allegedly caught
having sex with his girlfriend at her house in the eastern town of
Sigli. The villagers then handed him over to local officials, it said.
The head of provincial sharia affairs, Ziauddin Ahmad, defended
the implementation of the laws, saying that in most cases, offenders
were released after being given religious advice.
'Punishment is a last resort,' Ziauddin said. 'Our main mission is
to educate the people. We prioritize regulations that are urgently
needed by the people and when the people are ready to implement them.'
He said the regular reports in newspapers on unmarried couples
being arrested for being alone together indicated the public was
concerned about the issue.
'In the past, such things happened but were not exposed to the
public,' he said.
He said the requirement for Muslim women to cover themselves was
meant to protect them.
'For example, an Australian model who was detained in Bali was
constantly harassed by prison guards, but after she wore a headscarf,
nobody disturbed her,' he said, referring to Michelle Leslie, a model
who decided to wear a headscarf after being arrested on drug charges
on the Indonesian resort island.
'When something is half open, you want to see it in full, but when
it's fully covered, you have no interest to know what is inside,' he
said.
The Indonesian government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement
(GAM) signed a peace pact in 2005, ending decades of conflict that
cost 15,000 lives.
The pact was spurred by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami,
which killed about 170,000 people in Aceh alone.
Aguswandi, a British-educated human rights activist who leads the
Aceh People's Party, one of six local political parties contesting
Thursday's legislative elections, said Islamic regulations focusing
on morality were not what Aceh needed.
'It has become a distraction when we should be dealing with
challenges such as maintaining the peace, tackling the economy and
establishing good governance,' Aguswandi said.
Aguswandi said the dominant voice of what he called supporters of
'Islamic conservatism' was cause for concern and that many Acehnese
are critical of the aspects of sharia that are being implemented.
'Whether women should wear headscarves is not a major issue,' he
said. 'It's not the business of the state to regulate on such
individual matters. We're all victims of this distracting process.'
Aguswandi said not all Islamic scholars agreed with the aspects of
sharia in force in Aceh, but it was too sensitive to be a campaign
issue for political parties contesting seats in the provincial and
district councils.
'We could be accused of being anti-Islamic' for expressing
opposition to sharia, he said.
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