A couple in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province faced public punishment after being found guilty of having premarital sex. The incident took place on Tuesday, April 7, 2026, in a public park in Banda Aceh, where dozens of locals gathered to witness the caning.
The man and woman, whose names and ages were not revealed, each received 100 lashes with a rattan cane. Aceh is the only region in Indonesia that enforces Sharia law, which prohibits premarital sex between unmarried individuals.
“We enforce Islamic law in Aceh, so when someone breaks it, we must carry out punishments like this caning,” said Rajesh Kana, an official from the local prosecutor’s office, in a statement to AFP.
The couple was part of a group of six people punished during the event. Four others received between 8 and 29 lashes for offenses such as physical contact with the opposite sex and alcohol consumption. One woman, sentenced to 27 lashes, fainted after the final stroke and was treated by paramedics on-site.
Caning is widely supported in Aceh and is used to penalize various offenses, including gambling and same-sex relations. In January, authorities carried out one of the harshest punishments since Sharia law was introduced in 2015, flogging an unmarried couple 140 times each.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, officially recognizes six religions alongside indigenous beliefs, but Aceh remains unique in its strict enforcement of Sharia law.
