A married couple in Indonesia was sentenced to be caned this week for gambling at an entertainment center within the city of Aceh.
The couple was identified as Dahlan Sili Tongga and Tjia Nyuk Hwa, and are residents of the area. They were convicted of violating provincial laws by gambling, as Aceh operates under Sharia Law, which makes the activity forbidden. Muslims in the area are given strict punishments, with non-Muslims able to choose between corporal punishment or incarceration for crimes. Tongga and Hwa are non-Muslim and thus had a choice. They chose lashes, as each strike counts as one month in jail. They were each given seven lashes.
Also sentenced in the case was the owner of the premises where the gambling took place. He was given 22 lashes for allowing the activity to go down. In addition to the caning, police seized money from the site. An unmarried couple was also given 25 lashes each for affectionate contact.
The mayor of Aceh Aminullah Usman spoke about the caning, revealing: "This punishment shows our commitment [to implementing sharia]. We want to create a deterrent so that other people do not violate sharia. This is different to imprisonment, in which the public can't see [the convicts being punished]."
Comments
Wow, it's quite weird reading such stories in 21st century, should of been strange even for 20-th, but if I've had to choose it would be the lashes too..
Poor people...I've even lost the count of the lashes for all their "crimes".
Indonesia has a wide variety of cultures. And some of them have strict eastern laws. So we live in to diversity and respect each other's customs.
In that case he is in the Purified zone. some things that are banned including gambling, drunk, pornografi, stealing and killing. He should not gamble there because he knows what the punishment for gamblers in aceh. I hope he'll be fine after that
Lash punishment is surprising.
Until my school time in Korea, the teachers gave lashes to students up to high school.
I didn't get many lashes because I was a good student 😀
In universities, there were/are no such punishments, but in the military duty, they used to beat up everyday. I think that it should be much less now.
But, I still remember one occasion which I thought that was very unfair to be given lash punishment.
The teacher was old and stubborn with a very dirty personality. He didn't really have any love and care for his students. It was well over 20 years ago, so he should be dead by now, anyway. RIP.
aceh has the nickname "veranda of Mecca" because there is a majority of Muslims, leaders and all public figures using lifestyles with Arabic patterns, not so surprised by this news because this punishment has often been carried out in various cases, and I agree with that,