First Non-Muslim Caned Under Indonesia’s Sharia Law

The scene appeared to belong to another era, evoking images of public punishment from medieval history.

With her head lowered before a watching crowd, a female prisoner prepared to endure a deeply humiliating sentence.

Remita Sinaga stood surrounded by police, wearing a loose, floor-length white robe and a lavender scarf covering her head as she waited for the punishment to begin.

At her side, a man dressed in black and wearing a hood that concealed his face raised his right arm, ready to deliver the first strike.

The 60-year-old had not been convicted of a violent offence. Her crime was selling alcohol—an act that, in the region where she lived, could result in a public caning.

In 2015, Indonesia’s deeply Muslim province of Aceh introduced Islamic Sharia law. The rules outlaw gambling, adultery, sex outside marriage, homosexuality, public displays of affection, mixing with the opposite sex and the sale or consumption of alcohol.

A decade ago, Sinaga, a Christian from the town of Takengon, was sentenced to 30 lashes. She became the first non-Muslim in Indonesia to be caned under the province’s Islamic criminal laws.

Each year, millions of tourists—including large numbers of Britons—travel to Bali, Indonesia’s renowned party destination. Its sandy beaches, turquoise waters and nightlife come with a far more relaxed approach to alcohol, provided visitors are aged 21 or over.

But around 2,200 miles away, Aceh follows a separate penal system. It remains the only Indonesian province to formally implement Sharia law, with punishments ranging from caning and fines to imprisonment.

Here, alcohol is prohibited, which is why Sinaga, in 2016, was convicted by the Central Aceh Islamic Court after police found 50 bottles of alcohol at her stall.

She was initially ordered to receive 30 strokes from a rattan cane, but the sentence was reduced to 28 after time already spent in detention was taken into consideration.

Aceh’s Islamic criminal code formally applies to Muslims, although non-Muslims are permitted to opt into the system.

Sinaga chose to accept the caning, believing the alternative would be worse: a prison sentence in facilities where living conditions are poor and support for inmates is almost entirely lacking.

The case drew international attention in 2016, coming one year after Indonesia prohibited small shops from selling alcohol.

Since footage of the punishment spread around the world, people in Aceh have continued to face the corporal penalties imposed under the province’s Sharia system. In 2009, lawmakers also pursued legislation that would have permitted stoning, but the proposal was blocked by Aceh’s governor at the time.

Earlier this month, in Banda Aceh, the province’s capital on the island of Sumatra, a woman found guilty of having sex outside marriage collapsed while being lashed.

Photos from Aceh, the only Indonesian province to apply Islamic law in practice, showed medical and Sharia officers crowding around the 21-year-old after she received 140 lashes (100 for extramarital relations and 40 for alcohol) of the cane.

Her sentences matched that of her male partner, who was caned alongside her and struggled to stay upright during the sentence.

Ruthless officers, known as ‘algojos’, use rattan sticks to flog prisoners in front of Islamic court officials and curious onlookers in a gruesome spectacle condemned by human rights groups.

The public nature of canings in Aceh is intended to shame as well as inflict pain on Indonesians found to have violated Sharia law. They are often staged outside mosques or in community squares, with crowds watching and often documenting the event on their mobile phones.

It is common for prisoners to faint, with pictures and videos often showing them being carried out on a stretcher.

In July, an Indonesian woman became the first person to be publicly caned in Aceh for ‘committing obscenity live with a man on social media’ under its strict Sharia law, after she and her partner were accused of kissing during a TikTok livestream.

Images show the woman kneeling and screaming in agony as a masked Sharia female officer repeatedly brings the cane down across her back.

Her face contorts in pain with each strike before the punishment becomes too much to bear and she loses consciousness, collapsing to the floor as a woman tries to help her.

Dozens of onlookers watched the caning, with some calling for the officials who carried out the punishment to ‘whip stronger’.

The woman then lies motionless on the floor as a medic examines her to determine whether she is fit enough to continue the punishment, with any remaining lashes postponed until she is deemed well enough to complete the caning.

The woman’s partner-in-crime was also caned, while four other convicts also received lashes.

The couple was reported to the authorities after they were seen kissing during a livestream on the video app TikTok, which prompted an investigation that led to their punishment, the city’s Sharia police head Muhammad Rizal told reporters on Thursday.

‘They clearly violated the Islamic sharia,’ Mr Rizal said, adding that it was the first time in the religiously conservative province that people were punished for violating sharia law through social media.

Acts of physical intimacy such as kissing, hugging or touching between men and women who are not husband and wife are forbidden in Aceh.

Amnesty International Indonesia spokesperson Haeril Halim said the punishment for the couple was ‘a horrifying act of discrimination’.

‘This shows that the Aceh Islamic Criminal Code (Qanun Jinayat) has expanded its reach to target peaceful expressions in the digital sphere with the caning of the young couple,’ he said in a statement to AFP.

And in 2024, three men were brutally caned 42 times after they consumed alcohol on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Pictures showed an intimidating algojo gripping a rattan before carrying out the public caning in front of Islamic court officials.

They were led into the middle of the room to sit on a blue rug, their heads bowed, before each taking their turn to receive their punishments.

The Acehnese men received 19 to 42 lashes for drinking alcohol, known as ‘khamar’ in sharia law. A police officer with a microphone oversaw the punishments.

Before the punishment was carried out, all men underwent a health check by a team of medics. They were all deemed ready to serve their sentence.

The executing prosecutor then called the convicts into the middle of the room one by one, where the caning sentence was carried out.