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tudents from the Communication Forum for Sharia staged a rally on Tuesday at the Aceh legislative council building in Banda Aceh, demanding legislators immediately approve the jinayat, or Islamic criminal law, before the end of their tenure this year.

Groups affiliated with the forum - FPI Aceh, Unsyiah Students Administration, KAMMI Aceh and PMII Aceh - also demanded that the Islamic sharia law, which has already been imposed in Aceh, be correctly implemented.

"We urge the legislature to immediately enact jinayat. Don't be afraid to implement Islamic sharia law truthfully in Aceh," said Tengku Arya from the Islamic Defenders Front.

Jinayat, currently a draft law waiting to be enacted, outlines the sentences to be applied to those violating sharia law. It also lists the agencies authorized to oversee, prosecute and execute punishments pertaining to sharia law in Aceh.

The sharia law will be more strict if jinayat is implemented in Aceh. Article 37 of the draft jinayat, for example, clearly states that a person who commits adultery faces 100 cane lashes, or the death penalty.

"Unmarried couples committing adultery will be caned, while married people will be sentenced to death," said Aceh Legislative council special committee XII head Bachrom M. Rasyid.

Besides punishing violators, jinayat also regulates sentences for individuals or entities abetting others violating sharia law with regards to adultery, such as beauty salons, motels or hotels.

Legislative and executive institutions are still deliberating the draft law because of the numerous clauses in it sparking controversy.

The Aceh provincial administration said the National Commission on Human Rights had requested the United Nations evaluate the content of a number of provisions in the draft law, such as the ones on caning and stoning to death, deemed as improper nowadays.

KAMMI leader Basri Efendi said sharia law had so far not been implemented according to the wishes of the Acehnese community.

Law enforcers in Aceh are often lenient when meting out punishments against sharia law offenders, whose numbers have further increased despite the presence of ordinances and regulations that can be used to punish them, Efendi said.

However, many critics deplore the implementation of sharia law as it violates human rights and hampers investment in Aceh.

In response to the student demands, legislator Rayhan Iskandar said the council was reviewing the jinayat draft law, promising them it would soon be passed. "We have even submitted the draft law to the Supreme Court," said Rayhan.

Rayhan said Aceh would be the only province in Indonesia with its own legal system equivalent to the criminal code based on Islam, if the jinayat draft law was approved.