Aceh’s Sharia Court Orders Public Caning of TikTok Couple Over Kiss

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.

This part of Indonesia has hence witnessed a long-running pattern of public corporal punishment in Aceh. In May 2026, authorities publicly flogged four people, two men and two women, with 100 lashes each after convicting them of engaging in sex outside marriage. During the same ceremony, officials also caned several others for gambling-related offenses. Earlier, in January 2026, another unmarried couple each received 140 lashes after the Banda Aceh Sharia Court convicted them of engaging in sex outside marriage and consuming alcohol. Out of the 140 lashes, 100 were for engaging in sexual activities, and the remaining 40 were for drinking. The punishment, one of the harshest imposed since Aceh adopted Sharia criminal law, was carried out in a public park before dozens of spectators. Three female Sharia officers administered the woman’s sentence in turns using a rattan cane while she repeatedly sobbed and flinched throughout the ordeal. Moments after receiving the final lash, she collapsed from exhaustion and pain, lost consciousness, and officials carried her on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance for medical treatment. Her male partner also received all 140 lashes.

Similar cases have continued over the past several years. In February 2025, authorities publicly caned two university students with 77 and 82 lashes respectively after convicting them of a same-sex relationship, while two other men received caning sentences for online gambling on the same day. Later that year, another Islamic court sentenced two men to 80 lashes after finding them guilty of hugging and kissing in a public park bathroom. Public caning ceremonies remain a regular feature of Aceh’s criminal justice system, and often take place in parks or public squares before assembled crowds.

When it comes to the medieval practice of publicly flogging people for exercising personal freedoms that Sharia authorities deem morally unacceptable, Aceh stands apart not only from the rest of Indonesia, but also from all of Southeast Asia. Aceh’s public caning laws place it among a small number of jurisdictions that continue to impose corporal punishment under religious criminal codes, such as several Islamic countries in the Middle East. Iran, for instance, recently sentenced singer Parastoo Ahmadi to 74 lashes after she performed without complying with the country’s mandatory hijab laws. The province’s special autonomy allows its Muslim-majority population to uphold Islamic values through its own legal system. In fact, provincial leaders, with the backing of  the Muslim majority, frequently defend public caning as a deterrent against conduct they consider morally harmful, and maintain that the practice reflects Aceh’s cultural and Islamic identity.