Couple Caught Kissing On TikTok Livestream Brutally Caned In Public For 'Violating Islamic Sharia Law' In Indonesia
A young couple was subject to the brutal punishment of public canning for kissing each other without being married in Indonesia's Aceh province. The couple was caught as they were livestreaming on social media platform TikTok while kissing in a car in February.
- World News
- 2 min read
Jakarta: A young couple was subject to the brutal punishment of public canning for kissing each other without being married in Indonesia's Aceh province. The couple was caught as they were livestreaming on social media platform TikTok while kissing in a car in February.
The 22-year-old man and the 25-year-old woman were flogged 21 times with a rattan can in the Bustanussalatin City Park in Banda Aceh. As many as 100 people witnessed the brutal punishment. According to AFP, some of the onlookers demanded that the couple be whipped “stronger”.
The couple had been arrested in April after their TikTok livestream went viral on social media, promoting people to file complaint against them with the Sharia authorities.
“They clearly violated the Islamic sharia,” police said.
Two men were also caned for gambling. The province had earlier similarly punished couple for having sex outside of marriage.
Notably, Aceh is the only province in Indonesia that enforces provisions of the Sharia law and punishes acts like gambling, adultery, rape, sexual harassment, certain intimacies outside marriage, certain homosexual acts and alcohol consumption, production and distribution.
Aceh was granted the right to implement religious law in 2006 by the central government as part of a peace deal to end a separatist conflict.
‘Horrifying’
Amnesty International’s Co-Regional Director Montse Ferrer said, “Today’s public caning of a young man and woman simply for kissing is a horrifying act of discrimination, and a grim reminder of the enduring human rights violations permitted under the Islamic Criminal Code in Indonesia’s Aceh province."
He added, “The punishment shows how authorities are expanding their use of Sharia law to target peaceful expression online, as well as offline. Sharia police in Aceh appear to be intensifying digital monitoring efforts as they seek to punish acts deemed to violate Sharia law, including public displays of intimacy outside marriage."
He called canning an “inherently cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment that frequently crosses the threshold into torture”.
‘Repeal All Discriminatory Bylaws’
Demanding the Indonesian authorities to end the criminalisation of consensual intimacy, he added, “Repeal all discriminatory bylaws that permit corporal punishment. Indonesia, as a member of the UN Human Rights Council and a state party to the Convention Against Torture, must align its laws – including in Aceh – with its constitutional commitments to equality and non-discrimination."
“Corporal punishment has no place in a just and humane society.”
Published By : Nidhi Sinha
Published On: 2 July 2026 at 19:32 IST