An official in-charge of Sharia law in Aceh calls for more laws to punish crimes after a mob attempted to carry out a Sharia-style punishment by amputating the hand of a thief.

A group of residents in a North Aceh village to tried to cut off the hand of an alleged thief on Saturday. This was the first time an attempt was made to carry out a Sharia-style punishment of this kind in the province.
What we need is more Sharia laws, said Dhiauddin, the deputy director of Dinas Sharia Islam Banda Aceh, the official that is in-charge of proclaiming Islamic laws.

Aceh is the only province in Indonesia that has the right to apply Sharia law beyond matters pertaining to marriage, divorce and inheritance. However cutting off the hand of thief, is not listed as a punishment in Aceh.

The people's reaction derived from the lack of precise laws on how to punish certain crimes, Dhiauddin told AKI. However Dhiauddin stressed that the mob that was behind the attempt to cut off the thief's hands, should be judged according to secular law.

According to a report on the Jakarta Post newspaper the alleged thief, Saidan, was rushed to the hospital after he was accused by locals of having stolen cattle. They reportedly beat him up before trying to sever his left hand.

Indonesia's Aceh province will begin testing candidates for next year's provincial elections on the Koran, an election commission official said.

More than 1,300 Muslim candidates will recite verses from the holy book before a jury for about five minutes, said Nurjani Abdullah, a member of the Aceh Election Independent Commission: It is based on sharia law under which a legislator in Aceh province has to able to read the Koran, said Abdullah.

Aceh province, on the westernmost end of Indonesia, is the only area officially allowed to use sharia, or Islamic law, as part of a local autonomy deal.

Muslim women in the Indonesian district of West Aceh are to be banned from wearing tight trousers or jeans.

One local official said women found breaking the law will have to change into a government-issue skirt and their banned garments will be cut up.

The rule, to take effect next year, will also ban men from wearing shorts, said district chief Ramli Mansur said. If a woman flouts [the rules], her trousers will be cut up on the spot and replaced with a skirt that will be provided free of charge by the West Aceh government, Ramli Mansur told AFP news agency.

We're not stopping women from wearing trousers. What's prohibited are tight trousers and jeans. If they have to wear trousers, the trousers must cover their ankles and be worn under loose, long skirts.

The rule would only apply to Muslims.

The sharia regulation prohibiting women from wearing pants in West Aceh regency drew strong condemnation from public circles in Aceh province.

The enforcement of the regulation is an accumulation of the negative views against women from the perspective of Islamic sharia, said Norma Susanti, the women and children's division head of Aceh Human Rights NGO Coalition. She added that the regulation, issued by the West Aceh regent, was very discriminative in nature and very detrimental to women: Islamic sharia is not discriminative against women, but it's different when it is used as a political means by men to restrain women's movements.

Although Aceh has enforced Islamic sharia law, social problems have instead upset society further, such as the crime rate that has continued to rise, with increases in robbery, murder, rape and abduction cases.

Legal expert Saifudin Bantasyam from Syiah Kuala University said the ban on women wearing trousers was not legally strong enough to be enforced: The ordinance is merely a circular which has no legal standing, except for the internal interests of the regency administration. He added the bylaw could not be implemented because Aceh already had a provincial ordinance regulating the dress code in accordance with Islamic sharia.

Aceh Ulema Assembly (MPU) chairman Muslim Ibrahim similarly criticized the regulation, urging it to be reviewed. We should not be arrogant and force others not to wear pants, he said.

Also slamming the regulation was Taufik Riswan, director of West Aceh Women and Child Protection Research Institute, who said the regent was overreacting. The regulation is against the principles of human rights and the 1945 Constitution.

In September the provincial parliament approved a new criminal code that includes a provision for adulterers to be stoned to death. The move was condemned by human rights groups, and has alarmed local businessmen, who fear it will harm Aceh's attempts to attract investment following the tsunami five years ago. The provincial governor, Irwandi Yusuf, has refused to sign the new code, so for now it remains in an uncomfortable limbo. That has not prevented the Wilayatul Hisbah, sometimes compared with Saudi Arabia's notorious vice and virtue police, from pursuing their task with zeal. And Aceh is not alone. Across Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, dozens of local governments – given wide scope to enact their own laws under a decentralised system – have adopted Islamic regulations on dress and behaviour.

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A serious blow to the credibility and morality of Sharia police in Aceh province, has occurred after several members were detained for an alleged gang rape in Langsa regency.

Police in the regency said that they had arrested two Sharia police officers, or Wilayatul Hisbah, for reportedly raping a female detainee at the Langsa Sharia Police Station. The Langsa Police are also hunting down another suspect who is currently on the run.

Langsa Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Yosi Muhammartha said the three suspects were accused of jointly raping a university student when she was held in a cell at the station.

Yosi said the issue began when Sharia police officers were conducting patrol on the night of Jan. 8, and found a couple on the side of the Langsa ring road. The police brought the pair to the Sharia police office in Langsa. The suspects then questioned the couple in relation to violating the 2003 Sharia Public Indecency Bylaw

The Aceh office of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission has proposed a draft of the province's broadcasting qanun , or bylaw, that will be used as a standard to censor films, TV and programs to ensure they adhere to Islamic law.

The draft, however, received strong opposition from the local branch of the Independent Journalists Association (AJI), which objected on the grounds that the proposed measure violated press freedom laws.

Mukhtaruddin Yakob, head of the local branch of the AJI, said the draft had been submitted at the end of January to the governor's office for preliminary review: The proposed qanun is inconsistent with the [national] Press Law and the Broadcasting Law, he told the Jakarta Globe.

Mukhtaruddin said the qanun would require inappropriate censorship of the program content of broadcasters operating in the staunchly Islamic province.

The proposed bylaw would require radio and television stations to broadcast live the obligatory weekly prayer on Fridays and prohibit them from airing crime reconstructions, obscene material and sexual harassment cases.

It also bans broadcasters from airing fund-raising efforts that are not in the Muslims' interests, Mukhtaruddin said.

Under the qanun, movies, television shows (including soap operas and documentaries) and commercials would be subject to censorship by the Aceh Film Censorship Board and Aceh Film Advisory Board (Bapfida).