Unmarried Couple Caned in Indonesia

Six couples were publicly whipped in Indonesias conservative Aceh province Monday Mar. 4 for relations outside marriage. The twelve people whipped were arrested late last year during a raid on a hotel in the provinces capital Banda Aceh. Rights groups have slammed public caning as cruel and Indonesias President Joko Widodo has called for it to end. But the practice has wide support among Acehs mostly Muslim population -- around 98 percent of its five million residents practice Islam. Aceh adopted religious law after it was granted special autonomy in 2001 an attempt by the central government to quell a long-running separatist insurgency. AFP,

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