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COOKIES & PRIVACY POLICY

Aceh lesbian couple forcibly separated by police

Islamic police have forced a lesbian couple to have their marriage annulled in the Sharia law controlled Indonesian province, Aceh.

Stacey Cosens

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:49:02 GMT | Updated 1 years today

The women, who had been married legally for a few months, were also forced to sign an agreement to separate, reports the BBC.

The couple were married in front of an Islamic cleric, while one of them passed as a man during proceedings.

 

Suspicious neighbours reported them to police and the Sharia police chief told them Islam said they should be beheaded and burned for what they had done.

 

Aceh is the only province in Indonesia allowed to implement Sharia law, and while Islamic law was passed by the provincial parliament to authorise the stoning to death of adulterers and the caning of homosexuals in 2009, the governor has refused to sign it.

 

Activists have blamed Aceh's Sharia laws for encouraging vigilantism and intolerance, and say they violate the Indonesian constitution.

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