Two men were publicly flogged in Indonesia after they were found guilty of sexual relations by a court operating under strict Islamic law.
While g*y s*x is not illegal elsewhere in Indonesia – the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation -, it is outlawed in the conservative Aceh province, which imposes a version of sharia, the Islamic legal code.
The flogging began before midday on Thursday 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 witnesses.
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.
They were taken to sharia police for the alleged crime of sexual relations.
Rights advocates slammed the punishment as part of a wider trend of discrimination against LGBTQ people in the country.
