NYT: Indonesian Province Aceh Embraces Islamic Law

[DeepModem Mom]

Indonesian Province Embraces Islamic Law
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: August 1, 2006

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Across this most religious of Indonesia’s provinces, brown uniformed policemen in black wagons enforce Shariah, or Islamic law. They haul unmarried couples into precincts and arrest people for drinking or gambling. Increasingly, many of the cases are pushed to the ultimate conclusion, public canings at mosques in front of pumped-up crowds....

***

Battered by the Asian tsunami 19 months ago, Aceh is undergoing a profound transformation that is likely to have considerable impact on the nature of Islam in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country.

For centuries Indonesia has been known for the open-minded, sometimes freewheeling, interpretation of its dominant religion. That is changing as moderate Muslims find themselves under siege from more orthodox proponents, and as the moderates are hesitant to push back.

Aceh, where Islam has always been more rigorously observed, is the first of Indonesia’s 33 provinces to put Shariah law onto the books. Special Shariah courts established to mete out punishments have been operating for a year.

Now, some of Indonesia’s other provincial governments are looking to Aceh as a model for how they might more formalize Shariah laws already on the books. More than a score of townships across Indonesia have introduced Shariah-like laws that fall short of the precision of the religious laws here....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/world/asia/01indo.html?hp&ex=1154491200&en=37c2f26e0c5aa539&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[msongs]

1. gotta keep women in their place nt

[rodeodance]

6. equal rights?--Her a woman was sentenced to caning:

.......In a ruling that has enraged women’s groups, an elementary school teacher, a married woman in her 30’s, was sentenced on July 21 to caning for working in the headquarters of a political party on a Sunday afternoon at the same time as the party leader, who was not her husband.

“They were two people working in different rooms. How can she get punished?” asked Fatimahsyam, the head of the women’s branch of the legal aid society in Lhoksemawe, Aceh’s second biggest city.

It is not easy, the women’s groups say, to question the Shariah laws for fear of being considered an unfaithful Muslim. The women’s groups are careful not to criticize the existence of the laws themselves, but rather the method of enforcement.

Curiously, Mrs. Nursyamsiah, who was arrested here, is a civil servant assigned to the Shariah offices in Lhangsia, in southern Aceh. There she has watched the introduction of the new laws up close. A new force of 75 Shariah police officers — 70 men, 5 women — is being trained, she said.

[rodeodance]

7. "he police paraded them (women) before a throng of men"

....In Aceh itself, though, the way the new laws are being enforced has aroused some opposition, especially among women. Often, they say, an arrest by overeager Shariah police officers, many of them men in their 20’s and 30’s, seems orchestrated as a punishment unto itself.

When three activists, all women, chatting in the seclusion of a hotel corridor after a long day of meetings, were shoved into an open police van in February for not wearing their head scarves, the police paraded them before a throng of men.

“We believed we were in our personal space, and they broke into our personal space,” said Nursyamsiah, 41, the head of the Acehnese Women’s Empowerment Group, who recounted sitting on a sofa in the hotel where they had been staying after a United Nations-sponsored seminar on women’s rights.....

[saigon68]

2. Sounds like a fun place to visit

</sarcasm>

[Oversea Visitor]

3. Bush and his regime change

Woah reality a bitch

[megatherium]

9. What does this have to do with Bush? nt

[Oversea Visitor]

12. Moderate muslim country goverment having tough time

Lots of anger now, on what is happening.

Bush policy of regime change will result in regime change in these country in the future.

One that will be totally anti US.

Like it on now that is the reality happening around the world.

Why does it has to do with bush?

Who started all this shit?

[megatherium]

13. You have no specific reason to link imposition of Sharia law in Indonesia

to Bush or the US. I would perhaps blame Muslim totalitarians for that -- the US isn't to blame for everything.

[Oversea Visitor]

17. Reality is a bitch

Think what you like
It is amazing when one shout all this Muslim evil stuff one can be truly amaze at result generated among the Americans.
But wonder how the other side reaction will be.

A coin has two side
But it is still the same coin

Wheather you see head or tail depends on which side of the coin you on.

Anyway you go live in your bubbles I live in mine.

Forever will the divide be there
If one does not realise that the roots cause are mindset of branding other side evil
Then there be no end to conflict

Blame the muslim if you want to.
Keep blaming them, teach your children and your future generation this hate
I am sure it is the right path to perpetual peace.

[rodeodance]

4. This is serious stuff--for fundamentalists to force their views on the

population. Says people are hesistant to resist. I admit with the threat of a caning, I would be also. But the spread of this concept across Asia and Africa is what is startling.

[rodeodance]

5. more: they actually televized the caning. Photo on the webpage:

......In mid-July, a 27-year-old man sentenced to 40 lashes fainted on the seventh stroke of a rattan cane from a hooded man in the yard of a mosque here in the provincial capital.

The caning was televised nationally, with an announcer reporting that the man, who had been arrested for drinking at a beachside stall, would receive the remainder of his punishment once he had recovered.

[rodeodance]

8. but corruption laws not enforced.

...... Curiously, Mrs. Nursyamsiah, who was arrested here, is a civil servant assigned to the Shariah offices in Lhangsia, in southern Aceh. There she has watched the introduction of the new laws up close. A new force of 75 Shariah police officers — 70 men, 5 women — is being trained, she said.

The system of Shariah laws, she said, represents a form of politics as usual, a way of fattening the payroll.

“By applying Shariah law, the governor, the political elites, get more money for police, more courts,” she said. “We’ve opened a new section of government to look after Shariah.”

What also rankled her, she said, was the fact that the laws on drinking, gambling and relations between men and women tended to affect poor people the most. “Why,” she asked, “have they not introduced the Shariah laws on corruption? Stealing in Islam is a bigger sin than these small sins.”

[megatherium]

10. Any religion that inflicts caning or other punishments on those who

do not follow it is self-refuting.

[Igel]

11. But it's exactly what the

'rebel movement' that the NYT reported on for a decade *said* they wanted. It's precisely what happened in villages that the movement held briefly. No, no: it was a freedom movement, for increased autonomy. What "autonomy" meant was beside the point; it's always good, right, a reaction against oppression? It made sense to the college-educated Westerners.

When the movement was negotiating for the ceasefire and its legitimization, the NYT focused on resources: oil, money, other resources. That would help alleviate oppression. It's what a college-educated Westerner would think important.

In the last month or two non-Muslim aid agencies have been given their marching orders: stay, build stuff for us, but then get out. Esp. the women and non-Muslims. Oh, and the stuff you've given us is shoddy, so don't expect any thanks. (On edit: The nice, new Wahhabi mosques and Sa'udi trained imams can stay.)

Now 'autonomy' is itself oppression. The only possible explanation isn't that the Westerners engaged in self-deceiving; no, the province suddenly embraced shari'a. Who could have imagined this?

Um ... anybody who's actually literate in the sense of understanding what they read, not just people that can decode written symbols.

[Lars39]

14. These women need an underground to escape or to plan

how to kill these shits masquerading as men.

[smirkymonkey]

15. Hear, hear!

What the fuck is wrong with people - why would anyone want to live under such an oppressive system?

And I don't want to hear about how fucked up the US is too, we're fucked up, but I will take this any day over Sharia Law.

[VegasWolf]

16. Religion, the most dangerous concept on the planet. nt