Stomach churning news from Indonesia, where a 25-year-old widow in Aceh, the country’s only province that upholds Sharia law, is facing a public caning after seven men and one 13-year-old boy barged into her home and raped her as punishment for adultery. The woman had been having an affair with a married man, who was beaten, tied up and forced to watch as his mistress was repeatedly assaulted. The gang then poured raw sewage over the couple and took them to the Shariah police, who have sentenced both of them to nine lashes.
“We want the couple caned because they violated the religious bylaw on sexual relations,” Ibrahim Latif, the head of the Shariah police, said in an interview with the Globe. He said the couple had “confessed to having sex on several previous occasions.” The police have also arrested one of the men and the 13-year-old involved in the rape, and have asked the remaining men to surrender. “The punishment for the mob that raped the victim must be much harsher because they have set back efforts to uphold Shariah in Aceh,” said Teungku Faisal Ali, leader of Aceh’s Islamist group …
