In the Indonesian province of Aceh, authorities conducted at least 60 public floggings against 254 people in 2020, 52 of which were conducted after the COVID-19 outbreak started. We can’t stand by and allow the LGBTQIA+ community to be targeted like this.

On Thursday 28 January 2021, two men were flogged in public for allegedly participating in consensual same-sex relations. They were caned 77 times each.

International law prohibits torture and ‘cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment’. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee have made it clear that flogging amounts at the very least to cruel and inhuman punishment. No one deserves to be brutalised and humiliated in this way.

We need to pressure the Indonesian government to act. It must work with Acehnese authorities to revoke the bylaws that allow for caning. 

The UN has called on the Indonesian government to revoke the bylaws, and to ensure that consensual sexual relationships are not treated as a criminal offence.

Now it’s up to people-power.

Call on the Indonesian Ambassador to to relay to the Indonesian government that it must:

• Take immediate action to halt the cruel practice of caning and revoke the bylaws that allow them to take place, and

• Invite the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to undertake a fact-finding visit. 

This isn't just about the Indonesian government though. The Australia-Indonesia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership should be centred on human rights. We will also present this petition to Foreign Minister Marise Payne so that we can shine a light on these horrible human rights violations.