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An unmarried Indonesian couple from Aceh province found themselves at the center of a massive controversy and morality debate after a brief livestream showing them kissing inside a parked car resulted in their arrest, conviction, and public caning under the province’s Islamic criminal code.
On February 27, 2026, the couple, a 22-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, broadcast themselves on TikTok while sitting inside a car in Banda Aceh. During the livestream, they kissed. Viewers recorded the broadcast and shared it across social media before local residents reported the video to Aceh’s Wilayatul Hisbah, the province’s Sharia Police, who then initiated an investigation, arguing that the couple had violated Aceh’s prohibition on physical intimacy between unmarried men and women.
Officers from the province’s Sharia police arrested the couple in April after identifying them through the viral TikTok livestream. During the investigation, officers seized the mobile phone allegedly used to broadcast the livestream, along with a USB flash drive containing the recording. Prosecutors later presented both items as evidence before the Banda Aceh Sharia Court, which subsequently ordered their destruction upon the conclusion of the case. After hearing the case, the court convicted the couple and sentenced each to 25 lashes with a rattan cane. Judges later reduced the sentence to 21 lashes, after taking into account the four months they had already spent in detention awaiting trial.
On July 2, hooded “officers” of the Sharia system publicly carried out the punishment at Bustanussalatin City Park in Banda Aceh before a crowd of more than 100 spectators. Prosecutors supervised the caning while members of the public watched. Four other offenders convicted of separate offenses, including adultery and online gambling, received public caning during the same event.
The punishment shocked many outside Indonesia, but Aceh occupies a unique legal position. It is the only province in Indonesia permitted to enforce a regional Islamic criminal code known as the Qanun Jinayat. Jakarta granted Aceh this special autonomy following the 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of conflict with the separatist Free Aceh Movement. Since then, the province has retained the authority to prosecute a range of morality offenses under Sharia-based regulations. These include adultery, gambling, alcohol consumption, consensual physical intimacy between unmarried couples, and same-sex sexual acts. Depending on the offense, punishments can include fines, imprisonment, or public caning of up to 100 lashes. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Photo: AP Photo/Reza Saifullah |
Sharia court in conservative Aceh province sentences unmarried couple to 21 lashes each after video of them kissing in a car went viral, drawing complaints to local religious authorities
A young couple in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province were publicly caned Thursday after a Sharia court convicted them of violating Islamic law for kissing during a TikTok livestream.
The court ordered the 22-year-old man and 25-year-old woman to receive 21 lashes each with a rattan cane because they kissed while unmarried. The punishment was carried out on a stage in Bustanussalatin city park in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, in front of at least 100 people. The caning was administered by a group wearing robes and head coverings.
The couple were arrested in April after a TikTok livestream recorded on February 27, showing them kissing in a car in Banda Aceh, went viral. After the video spread online, complaints were filed with local Sharia authorities, leading to their arrest and prosecution.
They were initially sentenced to 25 lashes each, but the punishment was reduced to 21 because they had already spent four months in jail. The court also ordered the confiscation of a mobile phone and USB drive containing the TikTok livestream video, which were treated as evidence to be destroyed.
Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia that enforces a version of Islamic law. The secular central government granted the province the right to implement religious law in 2006 as part of a peace agreement aimed at ending a separatist war. In 2015, the law was expanded to apply also to non-Muslims, who make up about 1% of the province’s population. --->READ MORE
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