[Straits Times] THE Islamic police force in Indonesia's Aceh province should be disbanded after three officers were charged with gang-raping a woman in custody, rights activists said Wednesday.
Activists said the force did nothing but harass women about their clothes and humiliate young unmarried couples, and had now brought shame on the deeply religious province on the northern tip of Sumatra.
'This very shameful act has tarnished the implementation of sharia law in Aceh,' human rights activist Teuku Achmad Fuad said. 'We urge the Aceh government to disband the sharia police as they have failed to do anything useful.'
Women's rights activist Evi Narti Zein said: 'The sharia police's role so far only frightens people, especially women without Muslim headscarves or with tight clothes'.
The 20-year-old student was allegedly raped in a police cell in East Aceh earlier this month after being arrested with her boyfriend under local laws designed to enforce Islamic morals. Rights activists said the sharia police were not empowered to detain anyone, and could only issue warnings.
Provincial Deputy Governor Mohammad Nazar defended the force and said the rape was an isolated incident. Teungku Faisal Ali of the Aceh Ulemas Association, a top Islamic body, said the alleged rapists should be made an 'example' of how sharia law works in Aceh.
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