In Aceh, Enforced Sharia Law Has Outsized Impact

by VOAvideo on Oct 4, 2011

In Aceh Province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, Sharia police break up a game of dominos. Despite the players' protests that they are not gambling, the police confiscate the game and leave them this time with a warning. The incident ends with handshakes and good humor, but this is serious business. Brian Padden reports from Aceh.

Indonesia: Acehnese Sharia police chief says lesbian couple must be beheaded and burned

Fraud is one thing; they passed themselves off as a man and a woman to be legally married. But of course, Sharia takes both the crime and the punishment to an entirely different level, prescribing death for homosexuality, often in cruel, unusual, and creative ways, such as the police chief calls for here. More traditionally: