DAY 239 | Two Men Publicly Flogged for Gay Sex in Indonesia's Aceh Province

The two men were whipped by officers wearing hoods as onlookers filmed on their phones

Homosexuality is illegal in Aceh's semi-autonomous province under Shariah law, and caning of up to 100 lashes has been used as punishment since 2015.

Two men were each publicly flogged 76 times this Tuesday in the conservative province of Aceh, Indonesia, after being found guilty of engaging in homosexual acts by a court that applies strict Islamic law.

Homosexual relations are banned in Aceh, which enforces a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law, but they are not illegal elsewhere in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.

The two men were part of a group of ten people who were flogged on Tuesday in a park in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh for various alleged crimes. 

The men were separately lashed with a rattan cane in the presence of a small crowd, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.

The 10 offenders were whipped by officers wearing hoods as onlookers filmed on their phones.

Their initial sentence of 80 lashes each was reduced by four lashes for the four months they had spent in detention.

In April, local sharia police surprised them together in a public restroom in the same park where the flogging took place, said Roslina A. Djalil, an official with the Banda Aceh sharia police.

"Suspicious individuals"

A passerby “saw suspicious individuals and reported it,” according to Roslina A. Djalil. 

Amnesty International has condemned the punishment.

“The criminalization of homosexual relations... has no place in a just and humane society,” said Montse Ferrer, Amnesty International's regional research director, in a statement on Tuesday.

Three women and five men were also flogged on Tuesday after being found guilty of having sexual relations outside of marriage, close contact with members of the opposite sex, and participating in online gambling. Alcohol consumption is also by punishable by several strokes of the cane.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Staff, August 26, 2025

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