Aceh publicly canes couple after TikTok kissing livestream
Indonesia’s 2006 autonomy deal leaves sharia courts policing viral behaviour, seized phone and USB ordered destroyed as evidence
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An executioner prepares to flog a Sharia law violator in Banda Aceh, Indonesia on Thursday. Photograph: Muhammad Iqbal/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock
theguardian.com
A young couple in Indonesia’s Aceh province were publicly caned in Banda Aceh after a sharia court convicted them of kissing during a TikTok livestream, according to the Associated Press. The man, 22, and the woman, 25, were each whipped 21 times with a rattan cane on a stage in a city park, in front of at least 100 onlookers. The punishment was reduced from 25 lashes because the pair had already spent four months in prison, the report said.
The case sits at the intersection of two systems that increasingly feed each other: a local morality code with physical penalties, and a digital distribution network that makes private behaviour legible to authorities. The couple were arrested after a livestream from late February—showing them kissing in a car—went viral, AP reports. In court, a cellphone and a USB flash drive containing the video were seized as evidence and ordered destroyed, a detail that underscores how enforcement now depends on the same devices officials also treat as contraband.
Aceh is the only Indonesian province that enforces a version of Islamic law, a special status granted by Indonesia’s secular central government in 2006 as part of a peace deal ending a separatist conflict. Over time, the scope has widened: AP notes that in 2015 Aceh expanded sharia provisions to apply to non-Muslims as well, who make up about 1% of the province’s population. The law allows up to 100 lashes for morality offences including adultery and gay sex, and caning is also used for gambling, drinking, women wearing tight clothing, and men skipping Friday prayers.
Public punishments of this kind are staged as deterrence, but the mechanics look increasingly like content moderation by other means. A viral clip supplies the lead; the court supplies the verdict; the park supplies the audience. On the same day, AP reports, four other people were caned for online gambling and adultery, suggesting enforcement is not limited to one high-profile clip but is being routinised, with the internet functioning as both marketplace and evidence locker.
Amnesty International Indonesia called public caning cruel, inhumane and degrading, pointing out that Indonesia has ratified a convention requiring the abolition of inhumane punishments, AP reports. The couple’s phone and storage device were taken to be destroyed.
The video that triggered the arrest was filmed on a smartphone, and the sentence was carried out on a stage.