Jakarta – Six pairs of Aceh governor and deputy governor hopefuls took a Quran recitation test on Wednesday as one of the local requirements to compete in the 2017 election.

Jakarta – Two people have been killed in a blast believed to stem from a grenade detonating inside a car owned by a member of the Bener Meriah Legislative Council in Aceh on Saturday.

Jakarta – Several village chiefs in Seunuddon subdistrict of North Aceh in Aceh shut down Bantayan and Ulee Matang beaches in the past week, following reports of visitors violating Islamic sharia l

Arif Gunawan Sulistiyono, Jakarta – Leuser ecosystem, a UNESCO world heritage site that covers thousands of hectares of protected forest in Aceh and North Sumatra, must be included in the Aceh spat

Marguerite Afra Sapiie, Jakarta – The House of Representatives has approved the government's plan to provide an amnesty for 70 Acehnese former rebels, including their leader, Nurdin Ismail aka Din

Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights, or Komnas HAM, on Wednesday (22/06) named evidence of gross human rights abuse conducted by the soldiers in the 1999 Kertas Kraft Aceh tragedy, wh

Adam Harvey, Aceh – There has been a surge in the number of public canings for moral offences in the Indonesian province of Aceh.

Representatives of Aceh Singkil Christian residents have filed a report with the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), accusing their local government of discriminating against them in

Hotli Simanjuntak – The Takengon Prosecutor's Office in Central Aceh regency, Aceh, caned on Tuesday a 60-year-old woman, Remita Sinaga, alias Mak Ucok, for violating sharia by storing and selling

Lhokseumawe – A concert featuring an up-and-coming local pop sensation was banned by the city administration of Lhokseumawe, Aceh, who said it was violating shariah law.

Marguerite Afra Sapiie – People grouped under Gerakan Rakyat Menggugat (GeRAM) are raising awareness for the need to protect the Leuser Ecosystem Zone (KEL) in Aceh through an online petition.

Jewel Topsfield, Jakarta – Outdoor music concerts have been banned from a regency in Indonesia's conservative Aceh province on the grounds they violate Sharia law.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – A group of women were paraded onto a waiting truck that would carry them to the nearby sharia police office.

Banda Aceh – A young woman collapsed while being publicly caned in Banda Aceh on Thursday for violating sharia.

Hotli Simanjuntak and Ahmad Junaidi, Banda Aceh/Jakarta – Bieureun regency in Aceh has banned the employment of openly transgender people at beauty parlors, expressing concern about the influence o

Jakarta – Ulemas in the West Aceh regency say there is no place for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the area and are threatening to cane those committing such activities as

Banda Aceh – Officials in Aceh disbanded a talent show on Sunday evening (28/02) for featuring a fashion show displaying clothing deemed inappropriate under the province's shariah bylaws.

Jakarta – Members of the House of Representatives have criticized the government's plan to grant amnesty to former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) member Nurdin bin Ismail, popularly known as Din Minimi.

Aceh fishermen are nominated to receive the 2016 Nansen Refugee Award from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) for rescuing hundreds of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh in

Michael Neilson, Jakarta – Activists are suing the Indonesian government in a bid to stop development they say will devastate the last remaining area on earth where Sumatran tigers, rhinoceroses, o

Hans Nicholas Jong, Jakarta – A group of Aceh citizens will lodge a civil lawsuit against the Home Ministry at the Central Jakarta District Court on Thursday in a bid to preserve the Leuser Ecosyst

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The government must rule out an option of granting amnesty to former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) combatant Din Minimi and his fellow insurgents as such a move could cre

Jakarta – Rights activist are calling the Indonesian government's decision to provide amnesty to former Aceh fugitive Din Minimi inappropriate, arguing that he was more the leader of a crime ring t

Jakarta – The Indonesian police chief has taken issue with a move by the country's spy chief to promise amnesty to a militant who turned himself in, saying he must still face justice for a number o

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – After three years on the run, 30 active members of the Din Minimi-led armed civilian group in Aceh have surrendered to the government after being promise

Jakarta – The city of Banda Aceh has issued a decree banning its predominantly Muslim residents from celebrating the New Year, an official said on Tuesday.

Jakarta – Sharia police officers, locally known as Wilayatul Hisbah, raided a number of warnet (internet cafes) in North Aceh in the wee hours of Friday morning in an effort to prevent online gambl

Aceh Singkil – When a mob of Muslims swooped on a little church deep in rural Aceh in Indonesia this month, the local police were nowhere to be seen, although they had received warnings of a possib

Erika Anindita, Jakarta – The government was absent in the Aceh Singkil incident after it failed to accommodate the wave of protests that lead to an incident that claimed one life and caused thousa

Jakarta – Rights group Amnesty International has called on Indonesian authorities to immediately repeal Aceh's Islamic Criminal Code, which came into effect on Friday, arguing that punishing people

Aceh Singkil – The Aceh Singkil administration continued on Thursday to demolish 10 churches, which a group of Islamic youths had protested for not having building permits.

Kate Lamb, Jakarta – Indonesia is struggling to live up to its national motto "unity in diversity" after a mob attack on a church left one dead and the authorities responded by demolishing more chu

Human rights groups criticize the implementation of a tougher version of the Qanun Jinayat – Aceh's Islamic Criminal Bylaw, which takes effect Friday – and call on the central government to push fo

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The Aceh administration is officially implementing the Qanun Jinayat (Islamic Criminal Code Bylaw) on Friday for Muslims and non-Muslims in the province, criminalizi

Authorities in the Indonesian region of Aceh must immediately repeal a controversial new bylaw which imposes harsh flogging sentences for consensual sex in some instances and could make

Jakarta – The Aceh administration will start implementing a new, tougher Qanun Jinayat (Islamic criminal bylaw) on Friday, with wider scope and harsher punishments for violators, an official said o

Jakarta – The National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said on Monday that he removed Adj. Sr. Cmr.

Aceh Singkil – Authorities in Aceh province on Monday began tearing down several small Christian churches after hard-line Muslims demanded their closure, citing a lack of building permits, and foll

Aceh Singkil – Hardline Muslims in Indonesia's conservative Aceh province on Sunday demanded the local government close 10 Christian churches, just days after a mob burnt down a church, leaving one

Thousands of vulnerable people – children, women and the elderly – are staying in shelters following the burning of a church that prompted thousands to flee their hometown of Aceh Singkil in Aceh p

Fedina S.

Jakarta – The National Police said on Tuesday that one person has died and others are injured after a brawl between two mobs over the burning of a church in a village in Aceh Singkil district in Ac

Kate Walton, Guest Contributor – In the same month that 12 UN agencies called on all states to end violence and discrimination against LGBTI people, two young women have been arrested in Aceh, nort

Jakarta – An international rights group has called on authorities in Aceh to immediately release unconditionally two women arrested on suspicion of being lesbians.

Banda Aceh – Islamic Shariah police in Indonesia's devout Aceh province say two suspected lesbians apprehended this past week in a tourist resort will undergo rehabilitation instead of being charge

The arrest of two women in Aceh for everyday behavior is an outrageous abuse of police power that should be considered a threat to all Indonesians.

Banda Aceh – The Wilayatul Hisbah (Sharia Police) have apprehended two young women for allegedly being a lesbian couple after the two were seen sitting and hugging in a public space in the capital

Jakarta – An official in Aceh has been demoted for featuring a "vulgar" and "erotic" Indian dance performance during a cultural festival in the province's capital last week.

Hotli Simanjuntak, Banda Aceh – The former chairman of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) team, Pieter Feith, has said that Aceh administrations have not yet been able to take full advantage of the

Indonesia is still failing tens of thousands affected by the devastating Aceh conflict, leaving family members and victims in the dark about the fate of loved ones and without justice,