Two men in Indonesia’s Aceh province have been slimming down 77 times in public after being reported by the vigilante to police who claimed to have seen the men having sex.
Human rights groups have condemned the spectacle, which has been watched by dozens of people in the capital Banda Aceh, as cruel and medieval.
It was the third time authorities have defended people over alleged gay sex acts in Aceh province, which in 2001 was given the power to enforce sharia law as part of an autonomy agreement with the central government.
The men, aged 27 and 29 respectively, were arrested in November after a crowd of locals broke into their room and allegedly found them having sex. They were sentenced to 80 strokes by a Sharia court last month, but were beaten 77 times for spending time in jail.
The men pulled in pain and pleaded that the punishment should end as they were beaten with a cane on Thursday. The mother of one man fainted while watching, the AFP news agency reported.
Four other people had 17 strokes for extramarital affairs and 40 strokes for drinking alcohol. People caught gambling, or women wearing tight clothing, can also be punished by looking.
Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia Division of Human Right Watch, said the Aceh authorities were guilty of torture. ‘[The authorities] must be universally condemned for this cruel, absolutely medieval punishment for an act that should never have been criminalized in the first place, ‘he said.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo could not stop such abuse, he added.
Elsewhere in Indonesia, same-sex relationships are not illegal, although LGBTQ + communities have faced worse discrimination in recent years and are increasingly being targeted by the police under a fight against pornography law.