An Indonesian man who worked for a clerical organization that advised local government on drafting Islamic adultery laws has been publicly caned after he was caught having an affair with a married woman.
Mukhlis bin Muhammad, a member of the Aceh Ulema Council (MPU), received 28 strikes from a cane in a public park on Oct. 31 by a religious officer. The religious group helped write the local government’s anti-adultery law.
The married 46-year-old is an Islamic religious scholar and leader in the deeply conservative Aceh province of Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim-majority country in the world.
The region is the only area in Indonesia that practices Sharia—a stringent form of Islamic law, which has been applied in the province since 2001.
Public floggings and canings were first introduced in Aceh in 2005, and have since become common. Theft and gambling, as well as homosexuality—outlawed in Aceh 2014—are punishable by public caning in the province.
The woman who he was caught having an affair with was also publicly flogged 23 times.
Officials caught the pair in September in a car parked near a tourist beach.
“It doesn’t matter whether he is an ulema, an imam, or an ordinary citizen; the government does not discriminate.”
The 46-year-old is the first religious leader to be punished by public caning under Sharia law since it went into effect in the province in 2005.
Human rights groups have previously called for public floggings and canings to be discontinued.
Adultery is also criminalized in other Muslim-majority nations such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Pakistan, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia, where individuals can receive the death penalty, reported the Washington Post.
