A man and a woman were publicly beaten with 100 strokes of sticks in the conservative Indonesian province of Aceh after being found guilty of extramarital sex by a court operating under strict Islamic law.

Sexual relations between unmarried couples are prohibited in Aceh, where a specific version of Sharia, Islamic law, is enforced.

Indonesia banned sex outside marriage in its latest penal code of 2022, but the law will not come into force until next year.

A small crowd watched the public lynching in a park in the provincial capital Banda Aceh. The woman was beaten by another woman, AFP reported.

Three other ‘suspects’ were beaten with sticks a total of 49 times for online gambling and alcohol consumption. | BGNES