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Sharia police arrested for rape
A serious blow to the credibility and morality of sharia police in Aceh province, has occurred after several members were detained for an alleged gang rape in Langsa regency
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serious blow to the credibility and morality of sharia police in Aceh province, has occurred after several members were detained for an alleged gang rape in Langsa regency.
Police in the regency said Tuesday they had arrested two sharia police officers, or Wilayatul Hisbah, for reportedly raping a female detainee at the Langsa Sharia Police Station.
The Langsa Police are also hunting down another suspect who is currently on the run.
Langsa Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Yosi Muhammartha said the three suspects were accused of jointly raping a university student when she was held in a cell at the station.
The woman was gang-raped by the three sharia policemen during her interrogation, he added.
Yosi said the issue began when sharia police officers were conducting patrol on the night of Jan. 8, and found a couple on the side of the PTPN-1 Langsa ring road.
The police brought the pair to the sharia police office in Langsa.
The suspects then questioned the couple in relation to violating the 2003 Sharia Public Indecency Bylaw.
Based on a medical report issued by the Langsa General Hospital, the victim suffered a severe hemorrhage due to the rape.
”We have named the three sharia police officers as suspects.
“We have detained two of them and are looking for the third,” Yosi said.
He said the two detained suspects admitted their crime to police investigators.
He also said the police were developing a probe into the case.
The police have also conducted a criminal reconstruction at the Langsa Sharia Police Station’s detention cell.
“Apart from the medical report, we have also obtained evidence from the victim’s clothes, but we are waiting for a written medical report from the hospital,” Yosi said.
News of the gang rape spread quickly across Aceh, the only Indonesian province that enforces Islamic sharia law.
“This is a shameful act,” Lucy Paramita from the Indonesian Women’s Coalition, a local women’s NGO, said.
She added that the case illustrated that law enforcers committed many violations.
“People’s trust in law enforcers fades after these incidents,” she said.
Lucy said a state institution such as the sharia police should protect the community from violations against Islamic law, but the rape case shows women could become victims of abuse by law enforcers.
The Aceh Ulema Association has condemned the rape and urged authorities to hand out heavy punishment to the suspects, saying the immoral act had tainted the implementation of Islamic sharia law in Aceh.
“We strongly condemn the rape involving the sharia police.
“They must be harshly punished by using the Jinayat criminal code.
“This code requires violators be punished severely,” association secretary Faisal Aly said.
The Islamic criminal code was amended by the Aceh legislative council last year, allowing adulterers to be stoned to death.
