Gay caning
Malaysia: Caning of four men is a terrible warning to LGBTI people, while more await trial
Four men were caned today after being convicted of‘attempt of sexual intercourse against the order of nature’, said Amnesty International Malaysia, in signs of an increasing crackdown on LGBTI people in the country.
Another six individuals are due to face trial on the same charges tomorrow. Amnesty International calls on authorities to drop the charges immediately.
“These vicious punishments against LGBTI people are the actual crimes being devoted here,” said Executive Director of Amnesty International Malaysia, Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu.
“The Religious Police used more than 50 officers to ensnare these men in a sting operation – all to bring hateful charges and inflict cruel, degrading punishments. The whole affair is a scandal and a judicial travesty.”
The case began after eleven men were charged with ‘attempt of sexual intercourse against the order of nature’ following a raid and arbitrary arrests made at a private event held last year. A director from the Malaysian religious department, JAIS, said that after monitoring the men on messaging app WeChat, its officials conducted a
No place to cloak for LGBT people in Indonesia's Aceh province
In 2007, he too was caught with his boyfriend/girlfriend in Aceh, when he was an aid worker helping to rebuild the province after the devastating 2005 tsunami.
"The police urinated on my brain and beat the two of us up, we were treated like animals," he recalls.
"I was lucky that homosexuality wasn't officially a crime then," he says.
A day before the public caning, I went with Salman to the prison to meet one of the convicted men.
He was terrified, his hands and body shaking. He was nervous and said at first he didn't want help from the gay community:
"I have been deeply depressed in jail, I am trying desperately to be accepted here, I am trying to pull myself out of a dark hole."
What he wanted was to go residence to his family and return to his old existence, he says.
Before neighbourhood vigilantes broke down his rented room door, he was in his terminal years of a medical degree.
But returning to that life will be hard.
Indonesia's Aceh: Two same-sex attracted men sentenced to 85 lashes
The caning sentence handed down on Wednesday has been condemned by human rights groups and activists.
"I see this as a criminalisation, a step back for Indonesia and violation to human rights," Dede Oetomo, founder of Gaya Nusantara, an organisation advocating LGBT rights said after the verdict.
Ahead of the decree, Human Rights Observe had called on Indonesia to discharge the two men, saying that "the verdict will amplify fear among LGBT people not only in Aceh but also in many other, especially conservative provinces" in Indonesia.
The men will be caned during a public ceremony on 23 May in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh - where they were found by vigilantes.
The neighbourhood community filmed themselves kicking and beating the pair and the video was distributed widely in Indonesia. Rights groups declare anti-gay sentiment is growing in the country.
Aceh was granted special rights to introduce its retain stricter Islamic laws more than a decade ago.
Banda Aceh, Indonesia — Two men in Indonesia's conservative Aceh province were publicly caned 77 times each on Thursday after neighbors reported them to Islamic religious police for having sex. Dozens of people witnessed the caning at Banda Aceh's Tamansari city park.
It's the third time that Aceh, the only province in Indonesia to practice Shariah statute, has caned people for homosexuality since the Islamic law was implemented in 2015 as a concession made by the government to end a long-running separatist rebellion.
The men, aged 27 and 29, were whipped across the back and winced with pain as a team of five enforcers wearing robes and hoods took turns, relieving one another after every 40 strokes.
The men were arrested in November after residents became suspicious and broke into their rented room where they were caught having sex, said Heru Triwijanarko, Aceh's acting Sharia police chief.
A Shariah court last month sentenced each man to 80 strokes, but they were caned 77 times after a remission for time spent in prison.
Four other people received 17 strokes for extra-marital relations and 40 strokes for drinking alcohol.
A Sharia