(17 May 2017) A Shariah court in Indonesia's conservative Aceh province on Wednesday sentenced two gay men to public caning for the first time, further undermining the country's moderate image after a top Christian politician was imprisoned for blasphemy.
The court, whose sentencing coincided with International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, said the men, aged 20 and 23, would each be subjected to 85 lashes for having sexual relations.
The chief prosecutor, Gulmaini, who goes by one name, said they will be caned next week, before Ramadan starts on about May 25.
The couple was arrested in late March after neighbourhood vigilantes in the provincial capital Banda Aceh suspected them of being gay and broke into their rented room to catch them having sex.
Mobile phone footage that circulated online and formed part of the evidence shows one of the men naked and visibly distressed as he apparently calls for help on his mobile phone.
The second man is repeatedly pushed by another man who is preventing the couple from leaving the room.
The lead judge, Khairil Jamal, said the men were "legally and convincingly proven to have committed gay sex."
He said the three-judge panel decided against imposing the maximum sentence of 100 lashes because the men were polite in court, cooperated with authorities and had no previous convictions.
International human rights groups have described the treatment of the men as abusive and humiliating and called for their immediate release.
Human Rights Watch said in April that public caning would constitute torture under international law.
Prosecutors had asked that they receive 80 lashes.
Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia allowed to practice Shariah law, which was a concession made by the national government in 2006 to end a war with separatists, but other some other areas have introduced Shariah-style bylaws.
Homosexuality is not illegal elsewhere in Indonesia but a case before the country's top court is seeking to criminalize gay sex and sex outside marriage.
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