BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - Banda Aceh, formerly known as Kutaradja, is the capital and largest city in the province of Aceh, Indonesia. It is located on the island of Sumatra and has an elevation of 35 meters. Aceh is thought to have been the place where the spread of Islam in Indonesia began, and was a key factor of the spread of Islam in Southeast Asia.
Aceh Province has formally established Shariah law in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country with a relatively secular Constitution. In Aceh, women are required to dress modestly, alcohol is prohibited, and numerous offenses — from adultery to homosexuality to selling alcohol — are punishable by public whipping. Anyone found drinking alcohol or breaching the codes on moral behavior, whether residents or visitors to Aceh, could face between six and nine lashes of the cane. Non-Muslim violators of the Criminal Code (KUHP) would be given the option to choose between a sharia court and a regular court.
Aceh began its experiment with Shariah in 2001, after receiving special authorization from Indonesia’s central government, which was intent on calming separatist sentiment in the deeply conservative region. Now, after a decade and half, Aceh became a model for other regions of the country seeking to impose their own Shariah-based ordinances, alarming those who worry about the nation’s drift from secularism.
Banda Aceh, the province’s capital, is currently led by Illiza Sa’aduddin Djamal, the city’s first female mayor. Many activists for women’s rights say they supported her candidacy in hopes that she would be a progressive leader. Instead she has proved to be supportive about conservative moral code especially for women. For example, last February, Ms. Illiza, wearing a black head scarf, strode into the hall where Indonesian Model Hunt, a beauty competition, was underway, interrogating cowering models about the event. The Shariah police loaded the competition’s trophies into a bag and escorted models out of the building.
Today Aceh is one of Indonesia’s poorest provinces, with nearly one in five people believed to be living in poverty. “Shariah right now is about what someone’s wearing,” said Ratna Sari, the head of the Aceh branch of Solidaritas Perempuan, a women’s rights organization, who said she longed for a version of Shariah that tackled political corruption and promoted good public services. “Where are all the Islamic hospitals?”
Irwan Johan, a vice speaker for the Acehnese Provincial Legislature, said any real debate over Shariah was impossible, even though “a silent majority” thinks the government has gone too far. “They’re not brave enough to say anything,” he said about critics of Shariah. Mr. Irwan remembers a different era in Acehnese history — the 1990s, when there were so many discothèques in Banda Aceh. Now, he noted, there are no more discothèques in Banda Aceh, and men and women are told to sit apart during concerts.
Photo Credits: The Organization for World Peace
