Two men were publicly flogged in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province on Tuesday after being convicted of having same-sex relations. The punishment, which took place in a public park in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, saw the men each receive 76 lashes from a rattan stick under the province’s strict Islamic Sharia law.

Gay sex is outlawed in Aceh, which imposes a version of sharia, the Islamic legal code, but it is not illegal elsewhere in the world’s most populous Muslim majority country.

The men were part of a group of 10 who were flogged on Tuesday at a park in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, for a range of alleged crimes. The pair were flogged separately with a rattan stick as a small crowd watched.

Their initial sentences of 80 lashes each were reduced by four for four months spent in detention.

In April, local sharia police found the two men together at a public toilet in the same park where they were later flogged, said Roslina A. Djalil, head of Banda Aceh sharia police’s law enforcement.

Three women and five men were also flogged on Tuesday after being found guilty of sex outside marriage, being in close proximity to members of the opposite sex, and online gambling.

Caning retains strong support among Aceh’s population as a common punishment for offences including drinking alcohol and adultery.

The region started using religious law after it was granted special autonomy in 2001 as Jakarta tried to quell a long-running separatist insurgency.

AFP