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Annul Aceh criminal code: Komnas Perempuan
The national womenâs rights body is demanding that the Aceh criminal code, or the Qanun Jinayat, be annulled, saying it is unconstitutional
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T
he national women's rights body is demanding that the Aceh criminal code, or the Qanun Jinayat, be annulled, saying it is unconstitutional.
'We ask that the Home Ministry annul the Qanun Jinayat and other discriminative policies,' said commissioner Andy Yentriyani of the National Commission for Women Against Violence. In addition, the Aceh provincial government and legislative council should delay the enforcement of the bylaw passed at the end of September, she said at a national forum held by the commission on Wednesday.
Aceh is the only province allowed to issue bylaws based on Islamic law, or sharia, following the 2005 peace agreement between Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which had earlier demanded independence. The Aceh government said all procedures had been followed to issue the criminal code bylaw and that it was based on higher laws, including the 2006 law on Aceh governance and the 1945 Constitution.
Syahrizal Abbas, the head of the provincial sharia office, said Aceh had no choice but to issue sharia bylaws, or qanun, based on the 2006 law. However as formalizing sharia, which was based on the Koran and the Prophet Mohammad's sayings (hadith) into formal rules and law was 'very difficult', he said, 'the current qanun are a product of hard work and ijtihad' or reasoning based on the spiritual, moral and legal values from the Koran and the hadith.
