Free Republic

A group of unmarried couples were whipped in Indonesia's Aceh province on Thursday after they were caught behaving amorously -- a crime under the conservative region's Islamic law. Flogging is common for a range of offences in the region at the tip of Sumatra island, including gambling, drinking alcohol and having gay sex. It is the only province in the world's biggest Muslim-majority country that imposes Islamic law. The five couples flogged Thursday received between four and 22 strokes from a rattan cane outside a mosque in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, after they served several months in prison. Religious...

Mogadishu, 23 Nov (AKI) - Islamist militiamen on Tuesday in central Somalia publicly flogged two teenagers who tried to elope together, Radio Shabelle reported. Tribal elders sentenced the teenagers to 12 lashes each. The pair, whose ages were not stated, had tried to marry secretly without their parents' consent, Radio Shabelle said. The youngsters were flogged on their backs in the central square in the village of Jalalaqsi in Hiran province, according to Radio Shabelle. In October, Islamist militants shot dead two adolescents accused of spying for the transitional government in Mogadishu, the radio station said. The Al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist...

Although we Americans have the right to attend whatever Church, Synagogue, or Mosque we choose to, it isn’t so peachy in lots of other places. The photo that accompanies this piece is of an Iranian woman who was flogged for having the temerity to worship as a Christian, for example. The American Spectator’s December 11th analysis of the State Department’s 2009 Report On International Religious Freedom illustrates how really bad it is not only in Iran, but in at least 30 different countries. Author Doug Bandow divides the offenders into two basic camps: “The first are Muslim nations that seek...

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (AP) - An Islamic court in Malaysia has sentenced a Muslim woman to be flogged with a rattan cane for having a beer in a nightclub, a court official said Tuesday. It is rare for a woman in Malaysia to be sentenced to caning -- a punishment usually reserved for men in various crimes ranging from rape to bribery. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was sentenced Monday to six lashes and a fine of 5,000 ringgit ($1,400) for consuming alcohol, said a Shariah High Court official who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to make...

Tablets tell all: ancient athletes flogged for sins Allan Hall, Berlin June 7, 2007 AN ANCIENT training manual for Roman athletes — carved in marble almost 2000 years ago — prescribes far worse punishments than a sending off or a week's docked pay if they performed badly in the Colosseum. The manual recommends a flogging to get them to perform better. And the same went if they drank too much mead or behaved disgracefully with the local maidens. The marble tablet was found in 2003 in the town of Alexandria Troas in Turkey, and deciphered only recently by academics at...

(IsraelNN.com) A secondary school teacher in Saudi Arabia was charged with "dubious ideology, mocking religion, saying the Jews were right, discussing the Gospel and preventing students from leaving class to wash for prayer," according to the Saudi newspaper Al-Madina. The teacher, Mohammed Al-Harbi, was sentenced to 40 months in jail and 750 lashes for his "crimes". He was denounced by colleagues and students at his school. The Saudi authorities and Arab newspapers are presenting it as a case of the teacher "mocking religion" and receiving the appropriate penalty.

Australia protests after expatriate flogged in Saudi Arabia SYDNEY March 5 - Australian Prime Minister John Howard lashed out Wednesday at Saudi Arabia's ``appallingly inhumane'' treatment of a middle-aged Melbourne man jailed and flogged for a crime he did not commit. Foreign affairs officials have already protested to Saudi Arabia about its treatment of hospital technician Robert Thomas, 55, who was arrested last June and jailed for a theft allegedly committed by his Filipina wife, Lorna. She denied a charge of stealing hospital equipment, but was convicted and, under Saudi Arabia's strict system of Islamic justice, Thomas was held to...