Rita Panahi: Cut Indonesia aid until sharia law barbarism ends
INDONESIA receives significant Australian aid but that position should be reviewed while sharia law inflicts human rights abuses on its citizens, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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IT is clear that Islamist elements are increasing their influence in Australia’s biggest neighbouring country, Indonesia. Tomorrow, two young men convicted of homosexuality will be caned in front of a crowd in the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh.
The men, aged 23 and 20, were caught together when a vigilante mob broke into their home and beat them before dragging them to the local sharia police facility.
In a distressing video of the incident, the terrified men are physically and verbally abused by the enraged intruders even as they beg for mercy.
“Please brother, please stop,” says one of the young men who is naked and cowering as he phones for help.
In any civilised country, the thugs who broke in and assaulted the pair would be brought before the courts; but not in Aceh, where sharia law is enforced.
The mob walked free while the two men, who have been in custody for more than a month, were found guilty of the crime of homosexuality and sentenced to 85 strokes of the cane.
Canings are becoming all too common in the province of Aceh with more than 100 people flogged last year for moral offences such as being alone with a member of the opposite sex, drinking alcohol, and sex outside marriage.
Last year, a man was caned on a charge of gambling after being caught playing a game of cards with friends.
There are harrowing images of kneeling women, frightened and screaming in pain, as a sharia enforcer in a mask known the “executioner” delivers blow after blow. The barbaric penalty is typically meted out in front of a big crowd who record the beating on mobile phones.
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Increasingly, women are becoming victims of this severe and backward form of punishment with many being whipped for the crime of “khalwat” or being “in proximity” to a member of the opposite sex to whom they are not married.
Typically, those punished are Muslims — close to 90 per cent of Indonesia’s population is Islamic — but in April last year, a Christian woman became the first non-Muslim to be caned for breaking Banda Aceh’s strict sharia code.
The 60-year-old was convicted of selling alcohol and caned 30 times in public.
Late last year, images of student Nur Elita being flogged in front of the Baiturrahumim Mosque went viral.
In the pictures, the terrified young woman is forced to kneel on a stage and screams in agony as she is flogged five times, before collapsing at the feet of the sharia enforcer. She was then carried off stage and taken to hospital. That was after five strokes of the cane — so consider what the two men who will be whipped 85 times tomorrow will endure.
Amnesty International has warned of a surge in the number of canings being carried out in the region in breach of “international treaties against torture and cruel and degrading punishment”.
AND yet Indonesia is often held up as the model Muslim majority country; proof that a moderate form of Islam is possible, rather than a slide into fundamentalism.
Sadly, the world’s most populous Muslim country is far from enlightened or secular.
There are too many disturbing examples of intolerance and extremism — normally associated with Islamic countries in the Middle East and parts of Africa — that Australia can no longer ignore.
These incidents are occurring not just in Aceh but in other parts of Indonesia. Earlier this month, Jakarta’s Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, was sentenced to two years in prison on trumped-up charges of blasphemy.
The governor was essentially guilty of telling Muslims that it was acceptable to vote for a non-Muslim and had quoted a passage from the Koran.
The accusation of blasphemy led to mass protests against him with more than 100,000 taking to the streets demanding action.
Even after the five-judge panel found the governor guilty of an act that “has caused anxiety and hurt Muslims” and sentenced him to a two-year prison term, Islamic radicals demanded a harsher sentence.
It is time Australia took a stand. Indonesia is the biggest beneficiary of our foreign aid program receiving more than $350 million a year from taxpayers.
But it appears we are too frightened of offending the beneficiaries of the largesse with an honest dialogue about their human rights abuses.
How can we not object to a country that inflicts “the two finger test” on women who wish to join the military or national police force?
In Indonesia, women must prove their virginity before they are allowed to join and are required to strip and have their hymen examined.
According to Human Rights Watch, the virginity tests have also been conducted in local government and the civil service.
Major Gen. Fuad Basya said the two finger test was a matter of national security for the Indonesian government.
“If it is not restricted this way, then someone with a bad habit will become military personnel,” he said.
It’s naive to think that we can drag Indonesia to the 21st century with a stern lecture, but surely we can cut aid until they start treating women with a semblance of dignity and equality.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist
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