What may be legal in one country could be illegal in another, as was seen in a recent whipping in South East Asia. Recent reports stated that an Indonesian Christian man was whipped several times for selling alcohol in public as it is against the Islamic Law to sell alcohol. This man, Jono Simbolon, was sentenced to a punishment of public whipping.
Simbolon's crime was not done recently. He was arrested back in October last year when he was caught selling liquor in Aceh, a province in the north of Indonesia. Ironically, despite the whole country having Muslims as the majority, it is only in Aceh where they have implemented Islamic Law.
According to the reports, he was whipped a total of 36 times. The punishment was definitely brutal, and it was revealed that Simbolon is the third non-Muslim to have gone through a public whipping. As reported by Express, doctors even had to check his health after just the 10th stroke.
"This is our government's commitment enforcing Islamic Law," mayor Aminullah Usman told local media, as per Newsweek. "If there is a violation of [Sharia Law], immediately report it to the Sharia police, and we will carry out a punishment like today's caning."
However, Simbolon could have avoided the public spectacle. Chief prosecutor Erwin Desman speculates that Simbolon may have chosen the punishment, which is the caning, instead of going through lengthy criminal prosecution.
Alongside Simbolon, there were also nine other people punished: seven men and two women. The other people were accused of other crimes such pimping, prostitution, and gambling. Two of them were an unmarried couple punished for standing too close to each other; they received 20 lashes each.
Aceh has implemented the Sharia Law back in 2001 when it was granted autonomy. This was done to put an end to a separatist Free Aceh Movement which had been ongoing since the 1970s.
