Authorities in Indonesia's Aceh province will begin caning convicted gamblers next week, as part of efforts to broaden the implementation of Islamic law in the region, a government official said yesterday.
The mayor of the east Aceh town of Bireuen Mustofa Gelanggang said authorities next Friday will cane at least 20 convicted gamblers with seven strokes of a 2m rattan stick following prayers at a local mosque. The date was set after Acting Aceh Governor Azwar Abubakar signed a law approving the punishment Friday.
The law comes two years after the conservative province became the first in Indonesia to open an Islamic court, which is empowered to hand down punishments according to the Koran.
Abubakar is expected to sign additional legislation in the coming weeks that expands the use of caning to punish adultery and other crimes, Gelanggang said.
"With this punishment, we hope the convicts will avoid these crimes in the future because they would be ashamed to be caned before the public," Gelanggang said.
The small number of Christians and believers of other faiths in Aceh will not facing caning or be prosecuted in the Islamic court.
Aceh's population practices a more conservative version of Islam than much of Indonesia, and officials say Muslim efforts to implement Shariah law elsewhere are unlikely to succeed.
The Dec. 26 tsunami that killed more than 128,000 people in the province and destroyed much of the government infrastructure forced authorities to briefly abandon Islamic law -- including requiring Muslim women to wear head scarves.
But in recent weeks, the Islamic court has resumed functioning and witnesses have said that police are again stopping women deemed to be dressed inappropriately.
China and Vietnam yesterday inked 14 documents spanning cross-border railways to crocodile exports after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met with new Vietnamese leader To Lam in Beijing. The Vietnamese president’s visit to Beijing, his first overseas trip since becoming the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam earlier this month, signals a desire between the two communist neighbors to strengthen ties, amid growing trade and investment, despite occasional clashes over boundaries in the South China Sea. “China has always regarded Vietnam as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy, and supports Vietnam in adhering to the party leadership, taking the socialist
A former Saudi Arabian official alleged in a report that the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman forged the signature of his father on the royal decree that launched the kingdom’s years-long, stalemated war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the allegations made without supporting evidence by Saad al-Jabri in an interview published yesterday by the BBC, but the kingdom has described him as “a discredited former government official.” Al-Jabri, a former Saudi Arabian intelligence official who lives in exile in Canada, has been a years-long dispute with the kingdom as
‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’: Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges were assisting with emergency cases as more than 1 million doctors were expected to strike Hospitals and clinics across India yesterday turned away patients except for emergency cases as medical professionals began a 24-hour shutdown in protest against the brutal rape and murder of a doctor in the eastern city of Kolkata. More than 1 million doctors were expected to join the strike, paralyzing medical services across the world’s most populous nation. Hospitals said faculty staff from medical colleges had been pressed into service for emergency cases. The strike, which began at 6am, cut off access to elective medical procedures and out-patient consultations, the Indian Medical Association said in a statement. The discovery of the 31-year-old doctor’s bloodied
INCURSION: Ukraine has either destroyed or damaged all three of the bridges over the Seym River in Russia, which could potentially leave Russian forces trapped Ukraine yesterday attacked Moscow with at least 11 drones shot down by air defenses in what Russian officials said was one of the biggest drone strikes on the capital since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The war, largely a grinding artillery and drone battle across the fields, forests and villages of eastern Ukraine, escalated on Aug. 6 when Ukraine sent thousands of soldiers into Russia’s western Kursk region. For months, Ukraine has also fought an increasingly damaging drone war against the refineries and airfields of the world’s second-largest oil exporter, though major drone attacks on the Moscow region — with a