[Kabar-indonesia] Islamic law creates problems in Indonesia's Aceh Province

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

Islamic law creates problems in Indonesia's Aceh Province

August 1 (Kyodo) -- Despite its rising popularity, Islamic law or sharia has 
created problems in Indonesia's northernmost province of Aceh, encouraging 
moral vigilantism and disproportionately targeting women and the poor, a 
report by a Brussels-based nongovernmental organization says. 

Aceh, one of Indonesia's most devoutly Islamic areas, is the only province in 
the country that has had the legal right to fully apply sharia since 1999. 
How it works 
is now being watched by other provinces. 

The application of Islamic law was part of efforts by the government to find 
a 
political solution in the province which had been wracked by separatism 
launched 
by the Free Aceh Movement, locally known as GAM. 

The practice to enforce sharia has continued since a peace deal was struck 
between the government and GAM on Aug. 15 last year in Helsinki. In the deal, 
GAM gave up independence it had been fighting for since 1976. 

Officials responsible for implementing sharia "deeply believe that if 
standards of morality are restored and Acehnese become better Muslims, achieving 
other goals like peace, reconstruction and reconciliation will be easier," the 
22-page report by the International Crisis Group says. 

The report released Monday, however, notes that there is no indication that 
the implementation of sharia is advancing justice for most Acehnese.        
 
"The focus on morality seems to have become an end in itself...the zeal...has 
encouraged a report-on-your-neighbor process and a kind of moral 
vigilantism," 
the report says. 

The report presents an example in which three women of a nongovernmental 
organization taking part in a U.N. workshop in the provincial capital of Banda 
Aceh were seized by a group of the "vice and virtue" patrol tasked to enforce 
sharia for not wearing headscarves. 

"Women complain that they are disproportionately the targets" of raids by 
the authorities, "with far more operations against them for not wearing 
jilbabs (headscarves) than against men for not attending Friday prayer," the report 
says. 

Under sharia law, wearing headscarves is obligatory for Muslim women, while 
Muslim men must go to mosque every Friday for attending Friday prayer. 

According to the report, the law has also encouraged citizens to report their 
friends and neighbors for suspected breaches of moral behavior. 

Local newspapers in Aceh frequently carry stories on the arrests of unmarried 
couples walking along the beach or in a parked car based on "reports from the 
public." 

"Not only does this give a new status to the local gossip, but it leads to a 
kind 
of religious vigilantism, with conservative Muslim groups taking enforcement 
into 
their own hands," the report says. 

The report also touches on the caning punishment applied on gambling, 
adultery 
and drinking alcohol. 

"While many consider caning by definition a human rights violation, it tends 
to 
be viewed in Aceh as a punishment that is quickly over with, avoids detention 
and is designed to cause more shame than pain," it says. 

The report says, however, that caning has been controversial, not because of 
the corporal punishment, but because those arrested have been "overwhelmingly 
'little people,' men playing cards for stakes of a few thousands rupiah (less 
than $1)." 

It adds, "Why, many asked, were police-protected gambling rings not touched, 
let alone the big corruptors?" 

The authorities, however, have their own answers, saying sharia was to start 
with offenses where people are usually caught red-handed, with little people 
and gradually work up, according to the report. 

"There is a wide gulf between the popularity of Islamic law in principle and 
the unpopularity of how it's being enforced," said Sidney Jones, the Southeast 
Asia project director of the ICG. 

"But for many, that may be beside the point: the real issue is whether man's 
law or God's will prevail," she added. 
     
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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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