Bali, Feb 28 Two men were publicly flogged in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province on Thursday after they were found guilty of sexual relations by a court operating under strict Islamic law.While gay sex is not illegal elsewhere in Indonesia — the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation — it is outlawed in Aceh, which imposes a version of sharia, the Islamic legal code.
The flogging began before midday at a park in provincial capital Banda Aceh, with one man accused of instigating the relationship lashed 82 times and the second man 77 times.
Both were caned with a rattan stick as dozens watched on, according to an AFP journalist present.
The men’s sentences were reduced by three lashes for three months spent in detention.
In November, locals raided a rented room in Banda Aceh and found the two men — both students at a local university — together.