Flagellation News

The last time Aceh, Indonesia was in the news it was under several feet of water. Things are getting back to normal :


The 15 men were flogged with a rattan cane on a specially-constructed stage in front of the Grand Mosque following midday prayers on Friday.
Another 11 people are due to be caned at a later date.
According to reports from the scene, the event was more of a festival than a punishment exercise.
According to a BBC reporter in Bireuen, Maskur Abdullah, crowds of people, including children, watched the proceedings - cheering and booing as the culprits were brought onto the stage to receive their punishments.
One of the convicted men even faced the crowd afterwards and showed told them he had felt no pain, our reporter says.
On Thursday Bireuen's district chief Mustafa Geulanggang explained why the authorities had decided to implement caning as a punishment.
"It's not about pain," he told the BBC. "The aim is to shame people and deter them from doing the same criminal acts in the future."



In a story I have't heard on the Today programme, seventeen ex-Gitmo inmates have been freed after nine months in Pakistani jails.

Haifz Ehsan Saeed told AFP news agency that he had seen the Muslim holy book thrown "in a bucket full of urine and faeces".

Another freed Pakistani said he was tortured and his beard was shaved by US troops.

However, a third said the conditions at the American prison camp were better than those in many Pakistani prisons.

"It is certainly better than the jail at Faisalabad where there is no water, no electricity," Mohammed Arshad said.