Two men accused of having gay sex in Indonesia were publicly flogged with canes 77 times each after neighbors reported them to police.
Sharia police carried out the lashings in the country’s conservative Aceh province while wearing robes and masks. A large crowd gathered to witness the two men receive their punishment, including the mother of one of the men who fainted as her son was whipped. The men’s facial expressions showed obvious pain through their masks but the whippings only paused for the men to have a sip of water. The two men, both in their 20s, were arrested in November after police received a tip and forced their way into the rented room where they found the pair having sex. They each served three months in prison, which brought their original 80-lash sentence down by three. Indonesia’s Aceh province is the only part of the country where homosexuality is illegal. Public flogging is a punishment commonly employed in the province, which started using Sharia law in 2001.