3 Indonesian Sharia Policemen In Aceh Gang Rape Young Student

Two Sharia police officers in Langsa, in the Aceh province of Indonesia, were arrested after allegedly gang-raping a young woman they had brought in for questioning after she and a male were found together on the side of a road. They were probably doing nothing more than walking together, but under the strict, overly moralistic form of Sharia law that has been more recently adopted by Aceh unrelated males and females cavorting together is verboten. Apparently they were violating the Sharia Public Indecency Bylaw, instituted in 2003, whatever that entails.

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The poor young woman, a university student, was actually violated by 3 Sharia officers, who were interrogating her, but one of them got away. The question of the day is, how can these supposed arbiters and enforcers of morality justify raping a woman? One of the most violent and immoral acts a man can commit against a woman. Isn't that against their religion, or do they feel they are entitled to physically violate a woman simply because she has allegedly violated one of their stupid laws? The hypocrisy is astounding.

Indonesia was at one point in time considered one of the more moderate Islamic dominated nations, but certain provinces have taken steps backwards by adopting strict forms of Sharia. Aceh, for one has become increasingly more rigid over the years. They have 1,500 Shariah police who patrol the streets searching for violators of the various laws. 2005 introduced a dress code, which has gotten worse recently, with women being banned from wearing trousers, even baggy ones.

The dress code is for a woman's safety, according to Ayub Ahmad, a Sharia office official,

“It will reduce crime. Bill Clinton decided to have an affair with Monica Lewinsky only after he saw her in seductive dresses.”

Reduce crime? He can't even protect women from his own Sharia police force. Although violators are mostly reprimanded and given a warning, who knows what will come next as they step deeper into conservatism. Like this past September when they passed a law whereby adulterers are to be stoned to death, homosexuality was made illegal, and marital rape is not a crime. Although they are becoming more and more like the Taliban and Saudi Arabia, there are those who adamantly proclaim they are not.

"There is no clash between modernity and Islam," said Marzuki Abdullah, a stout man with a bottlebrush moustache who is the commander of the 1,500-strong Sharia police force. “Religion is the primary need of Acehnese people.”

“But we are not like the Taliban,” he said, explaining that stoning is the last resort.

Maybe not today, but some day. This is what happens when the people blindly accept what is happening to them. It starts off slowly, and then suddenly it's too late to change.