New Law in Aceh Allows Stoning to Death of Adulters

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iK-JIckrgPJ30kN2Erx6IBVBCIcw

I’ll write more about this later, but for now, just want to share. Article from AFP.

Indonesian rights groups condemn new stoning law

By Nurdin Hassan (AFP) – 19 hours ago

BANDA ACEH — Indonesian rights activists condemned as “cruel and degrading” on Tuesday a new Islamic law calling for adulterers to be stoned to death in the country’s staunchly conservative Aceh province.

The law — which also allows punishments of up to 400 lashes for child rape, 100 lashes for homosexual acts and 60 lashes for gambling — was passed unanimously Monday by lawmakers in the region at the northern tip of Sumatra island.

The law replaces elements of Indonesia’s criminal code with sharia, or Islamic law, for Muslims. It allows the death penalty for married people and 100 lashes for unmarried people found guilty in cases of adultery.

“The laws that have been approved in Aceh are cruel and degrading to humanity,” National Commission on Human Rights head Ifdhal Kasim told AFP.

The law undermines the secular basis of Indonesia’s law, Kasim said, adding the rights group was appealing to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to review the legislation.

“This will bring Aceh back to the past. Throwing stones is like Aceh in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries,” Kasim said, adding the law would likely embolden conservatives pushing for sharia on a national level.

The controversial legal change was passed in Aceh just weeks before a new, more moderate provincial assembly — dominated by the Aceh Party of former separatist fighters of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) — is due to take power.

The administration of Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf, himself a former GAM fighter, is opposed to the strict sharia law, but has said it is powerless to stop the law, which will come into effect in 30 days with or without his signature.

“(The law) only deals with petty crimes, adulterers, but it doesn’t deal with (significant crimes such as) corrupt officials,” Human Rights Watch spokesman Andreas Harsono said.

“In our opinion it is against the principle of human rights,” he said.

Human Rights Working Group head Rafendi Djamin said the punishments set out in the law were “humiliating and degrading” and a product of politicking among local leaders.

“They’re more interested in private issues than issues of the wider public interest like corruption and measures to empower people who have been suffering in the wake of conflict,” Djamin said.

Arif Budimanta, a senior official of the opposition Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, condemned the law — despite local members having supported it in the Aceh assembly.

“We are deeply concerned about this cruel law as it is against our national ideology and values of pluralism,” he said.

Spokesmen for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a liberal ex-general re-elected by a landslide earlier this year, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Ma’ruf Amin, the head of the Indonesian Council of Ulema, Indonesia’s top Islamic body, welcomed the new hardline law.

“The Council supports sharia law in areas where it is allowed, like Aceh, which has special autonomy. It’s not a matter of good or bad.

“For Muslims, sharia law is the best and can be implemented anytime, anywhere. As long as there is agreement from everyone, there’s no problem,” Amin said.

Aceh had previously adopted a milder form of sharia law in 2001 as part of an autonomy package from Jakarta aimed at quelling local separatist sentiment.

The sharia code enforced religious observation and offered lighter punishments — including caning — for gambling, drinking and association between unmarried members of the opposite sex.

Separatists in Aceh had been fighting the Indonesian government since 1976 until a peace deal in 2005 in a conflict that claimed over 15,000 lives.

Nearly 90 percent of Indonesia’s 234 million people are Muslim, but the country also has significant Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Confucian minorities. Most Muslims practise a moderate form of the religion.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

Sneaky blog post 3

Aceh has a new baby. Her name is Nadifah and she’s miniature!

Sleepy Nadifah. I know where you're coming from girl.

We bonded for a few seconds...before Nadifah was so overwhelmed by her love for me that she started crying. I know Nadifah, these emotions are powerful...

Welcome to Rushworth

I spent last week at home in Rushworth, the small town where I was born and raised. MJ and I hung out a bit and worked in the garden, and when MJ was at work I wandered around the house, read books, made lunch, lit the fire, that kind of thing.

One day I set off around town to take photos for a blog post. As you can imagine it’s impossible to compress 26 years of memories into one blog post’s worth of photos, so rather than comprehensively showing off Sarah’s Rushworth, I will give random stories about the things I walked past as I did a loop of the town.

Flowers on the footpath

These flowers are very much in vogue at the moment and I especially liked the way they were used along this path.

I followed Moora Rd towards High St, and came across these spooky places:

Haunted house

This place is spooky for obvious reasons. It’s a haunted house…duh.

The Masonic Hall

The Masonic Hall is spooky more specifically because it was the site of one of my most vivid and weird dreams ever. I had it when I was maybe 8 or 10 or something, and I still remember it. There was a monkey swinging on the pole that protruded from the front and we were inside it getting chased around by some mysterious figure. I’m guessing that my subconscious chose that location as the scene of my dream because Masons are weird and mysterious. On that point, that means this place is doubly spooky.

U Clipped Us (Har Har)

Please allow me to introduce you to a great Australian (and perhaps global) tradition: The Hairdresser Pun.

This clever hairdresser decided to call their business ‘U Clipped Us’ (if the joke isn’t immediately clear to you, think of the big, native Australian trees). Bravo bravo.

The Agitator

The Agitator Laundromat has only come about since I moved out of Rushworth, but it makes me giggle. Next door is the newish store, Rushy Recyclables.

Rushworth historical history

Rushworth is very historical. It’s all about the history, yes siree. Above: Historic Wagon and Historical Museum. I am trying to ascertain and will gladly take suggestions on whether a historical museum is a museum about history, or a very old museum. I think Rushworth’s Historical Museum is both of those things, but I wonder if there is a distinction between the words historic, and historical that I don’t know about…Anyone?

Some more historica or historical things in High Street Rushworth:

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Rushworth Shire Hall

The Shire Hall is where I had my 21st birthday party and Jess and Mark had their wedding reception. Countless other moments in Fortuna history happened there. Marcus played Danny in Grease, for example. It was also the place where I got my finger stuck in a hole in the floor during a concert when I was about seven and was sure my teacher would have to chop my finger off.

Hairitage on High

This building is the old Waranga News office. It now enjoys a more glamorous life as the home of Rushworth’s other hair salon, Hairitage on High. That’s right…Hairitage on High.

High St, Rushworth

The Park

This is the park closest to my house and like ever other park in the world the best parts of the park was considered unsafe years ago. The steamroller in the background use not to be behind a fence. We could play all over it. There was a hole in the roof and a strange red substance that fueled stories that some kid a long long time ago fell through the hole and had his head chopped off. I never asked an adult for verification and just assumed it wasn’t true but secretly was a bit scared every time I played on it.

My primary school, St Mary's.

Then my camera battery died. Tour of Rushworth over. I hope you liked it.

Talking about work and other things

I just got back from visiting Nicole down the road where we drank Vietnamese coffee and ate mini muffins in her sunny and stylish apartment. It was also the first time in two weeks that I talked about work related stuff….WORK!

Almost every conversation in Aceh related to work in one way or another. Maybe someone was venting about a problem with a project, or someone had a new philosophy on “where we’re going wrong!” or maybe someone would mention the weird/delicious cake that was brought it for a snack (it was green and you drizzled this maple syrup stuff on it!). We were, after all, simply bodies attached to organisations in that place. Hi, I’m Jean, I work for Red Cross. Hi, I’m Dan, I work for Oxfam. Or if you want to get really personal: Hi, I’m Jose, I work for Save the Children and I’m from Spain. Once in a yoga class that my friend Sarah was leading, she asked each person to introduce themselves and say one thing about them that WAS NOT related to their work. There were audible shrieks of fear in the group.

Since being in Melbourne my brain (very easily) switched off from work and switched onto:

1. how to burp a baby (I am VERY good at this, if I do say so myself)
2. remembering to have change for the train or tram
3. deciding what to eat when there is more than one choice

Looking after babies obviously requires more brain power than deciding what to eat for lunch, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the stress either activity causes me. I am absolutely certain that I do not like having choices. I don’t deal well with choices.

Back to visiting with Nicole, she is a smaaaaart cookie, in the early stages of a PhD that’s about all sorts of things that interest us both so there was a lot of talking we simply needed to do. We talked about the kind of stuff that, when we worked together (she was the BOSS), we would get stuck in her office talking for hours about. Big picture stuff about the state of development (and the world for that matter). For her it was relevant. For me, who probably should have been calling someone to chase up something, or sending off a contract to be signed, it was the most fun part of my day.

We wandered down to A1 Bakery for some tasty Middle Eastern baked goods for lunch and talked about work some more. Eventually I had to let Nicole get back to applying her thoughts in a meaningful way.

On the way back to Benjamin’s place I stopped in at the Book Grocer and bought eight books! I don’t have a bookshelf to store books on, and I certainly can’t take these eight books (along with the others I’ve already earmarked) to Bangkok with me. But they were only $5 each and I was convinced I needed each one. The Bonds of Freedom: Simone de Beauvoir’s Existentialist Ethics. Can you believe I didn’t already have a copy?!

Yes, I admit I just bought eight books which will probably be read to the 20th page and put aside for another time.

Now I am back on Benj’s couch coughing and spluttering and enjoying the warmer weather (the icy winds have finally moved on! Come forth Spring!) Maybe, now that I am committing to the couch for at least an hour or two I will read one of my new books (my favourite title of today’s bunch: Breaking Hearts: The Two Sides of Unrequited Love)

Speaking of matters of the heart, I scanned this picture and sonnet from a book in MJ’s collection called “The Poetry of Artists” or something like that (MJ has had this book since before she was MJ Fortuna–more than 40 years ago I’m estimating–so I’m having trouble locating it on Amazon).

Raphael Sonnet (click to enlarge)

Is it destiny or fortune that brings me a cold?

I spent Tuesday afternoon with Serene Destiny.

She’s a lovely Sicilian who lives in Norway, is travelling around Australia and came to Melbourne to visit Clare. Serene Destiny will more quickly respond to Serena Sorte if you call her in the street, but assuming that not all readers of this blog are fluent in Italian I took the liberty of translating into English. No, no, don’t feel bad…Just because you’re a brute, an animal who can’t speak Italiano, doesn’t mean you don’t offer the world something.

We walked from Clare’s house in Kensington to the Botanic Gardens via coffee at the Journal Cafe.

Serena requested that we have good coffee, wanting to make the most of Melbourne’s coffee before heading north in search of warmth and the unavoidable bad nescafe. I felt the weight of this request heavily on my shoulders. Finding a coffee that an Italian aproves of? I like good coffee but I choose my cafes based on other things too (lighting, noise, music), and even then…what if they’ve all changed since last year? So I called Lara because this girl knows good coffee and she knows the city as of September 2008. Turns out that The Journal, our old favourite, is still a favourite, which made me very happy (that things don’t change too much). The coffee was excellent and the food was too. And they were playing Kate Bush!

Then, walking through the Botanic Gardens at 5pm, the sun setting, heading back into the city, crossing the Yarra, a picturesque Melbourne moment! The blossoms on the trees! The rowers pulsing down the river!

Oh, I took some photos!

After a first rate Melbourne afternoon I dopped Serena off at Clare’s work, the North Fitzroy Arms. I would just drop her off and head back to Benjamin’s, cook dinner and tick items off my to-do list. Enough messing around Sarah. You have things to do.

But…oh North Fitzroy Arms, it’s been so long since I last walked through the doors from the icy, cruel world outside into your warm embrace. And it’s steak night! Clearly this is Serene Destiny. So I call Greg and propose that he join us. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to have steak night without Greg in attendance. Perhaps it’s like a steak night quorum. Greg was there within minutes and soon we were eating $12 steaks.

As Clare drove me home after her shift ended (and I got lost because I forgot which streets were where), we talked about serene destiny and I thought “gee, I wish I had an Italian surname that meant something nice like destiny” when Clare kindly pointed out that Destiny and Fortune had spent the day together.

I don’t know whether Destiny was just stronger than Fortune that day but we both started the day with scratchy throats and I ended it feeling ready to climb into bed and never get out. I was well and truly under the weather by Wednesday and now it’s Thursday and I’m planning on pushing myself only as far as Nicole’s apartment down the road for a cup of tea.

Reunion #3: Waranga News turns 30

Sunday morning a week ago it was time to head home to Rushworth for reunion #3, the 30th birthday of the Waranga News.

Rather than try to contain the history of the paper in a couple of lines, I will just post this page Mary Jo put together for the 30th birthday edition of the paper:

History of the Waranga News. Click to englarge.

People who have worked on the paper over the years and their family (including a lot of Fortunas) and friends got together for lunch and story-telling, disputes over the details of history and a lot of “wow, you got old” moments.

Bob making a speech. MJ awaiting her turn.

Winner of the commemorative short story competition, Jess McLean

Workers past and present celebrate with a birthday cake

Jess with her monster pram on the way to the Waranga News office (carrying three children with ease!)

Abby working on the next edition of the paper

The lunch on offer that day was truly spectacular. Pork on a spit with salads and potatoes followed by cheesecake, fruit flan and the ultimate Aussie dessert….pavlova. I couldn’t have asked for a more delicious, more appropriate country meal for my return to Rushworth.

I spent the following week in Rushworth, sleeping in, pottering about the house and sitting by the fire. I will post some photos from the week later, but right now I need to warm up my toes…it’s soooo cold in Melbourne (and I think I’m getting a cold…)

Colour IQ

I know I should be posting news (I’ve never had so much material waiting in the wings!) but instead I’ll alert you to the all important Colour IQ test.

I’m particularly convinced of the value of colour IQ because I got a high score. 

Link found at How About Orange.

Reunions (1 and 2)

OK, time to get posting! I want write about my last night in Aceh when the low key taco night turned into a cracker party but I thought it would be funny to take photos on a film camera that I had in my room but (of course) I haven’t had the film developed yet. So I will jump ahead and get on with posting about the series of reunions I’ve had over the last week.

No.1. Ryan Cook’s first birthday

Ryan turns 1

You may remeber Ryan from his brush with fame in Bali earlier this year. Here’s a tip: If you’re a baby in Bali you’re going to get a lot of attention. If you have milky white skin in Bali you’re going to get attention. If you smile and laugh with everyone you meet in Bali you’re going to get attention. Ryan excelled at all three and was consequently the most famous person in Bali…ever. And all this fame well before his first birthday.

His age is slowly catching up to reflect his worldly life experiences as Ryan ticks off the twelfth month of life. Ryan and I, who see eye to eye on most things, both agree that nothing celebrates a milestone better than cake.

Nom nom nom

Ryan’s benefactor and cake maker, Meaghan, had the very good sense to move the family to Ocean Grove, which, for those of you who don’t live in Victoria, is about as nice as it sounds.

The whole gang of our highschool besties (who are also, fortunately, my 2008 besties) headed down to Ocean Grove and we celebrated all being in the same place at the same time for the first time in forever by eating way too much delicious party food (perhaps that was just me…but there were party sausage rolls….i love them), and getting comfortable with a drink around the kitchen table until well into the afternoon (outlasting the other party guests by a casual few hours). Lucky for us we know Meags would never kick us out so we settled in. We got some group shots but they’re on another camera so I will track them down and tell you all about those great sheilas when I can show you a photo of them.

We probably would have stayed around the kitchen table the whole weekend if we didn’t have reunion no.2 back in Melbourne. So Lara, Amanda, Clare, Elodie and I hopped into Lara’s car and headed back to the big smoke.

Our next birthday was Ksenia’s 28th that involved less cake but about as much booze. Actually, this photo that I took at the end of the night (and have nooooo recollection of) proves that Ksensia’s involved a fair few more martinis.

Alan with Amanda in Trolley. Sarah Fortuna 2008.

But slightly earlier in the night…..

Photo Magic

The stars aligned with Lara’s camera to create….Photo Magic. The above photo is of Lara with her camera so not actually a reflection of photo magic, but a record of Lara and her camera on the wonderous night.

Too bad for this blog that I don’t have any of those photos…

While nothing says “birthday” to Ryan more than cake, nothing says “public humiliation with a warm and fuzzy afterglow” to Ksenia more than her Ukrainian mates barging into the frou frou bar with guitars and accordions to sing her a song in Ukrainian.

Ksenia's troubadours

I think the overall theme of the song was “why aren’t you married yet?” So I guess that’s proof that grandma’s nagged messages are quite effectively passed on to the next generation. Grandmas around the world must be proud.

Alan, Amanda, Lara and I outlasted the birthday girl and stumbled home via shopping trolley sometime past the time I could remember.

The next morning involved an early start to make it home in time for reunion no.3 and on my arrival Mary Jo greeted me with, “you’re looking seedy.” Awwww, I missed you too.

I’ll post about the next event that involved waaaay more cake (record breaking amounts of cake) and no booze at all, later.

Taking a step back in time

I have SO much I want to post because it’s been an action packed and reunion-filled 1.5 weeks. I’ve experienced the good fortune of being home in time for:

1. Ryan’s first birthday (and all the girls were in the same place for first time in years…Ryan can really pull a good crowd);

2. Ksenia’s birthday party which was not only a special occasion but a history-making night of martinis and photo magic;

3. The Waranga News 30th birthday at which all but one Fortuna sibling+family was in attendance…and plenty of other people who I’ve known for so long I don’t remember meeting in the first place;

4. Liam and Oliver’s christening (next weekend, which is a relief because I already have 100 photos to post)

But before I post about all of those things, I must finally post about my last few days in Banda Aceh.

As you all know, it is currently the fasting month of Ramadan. One of the rituals of Ramadan that we could probably all appropriate to great effect is the practice of breaking the fast (buka puasa=open fast) at the end of the day with friends. It’s common in Banda Aceh to host an event around buka puasa, and with quite a few birthdays and my farewell falling during Ramadan, we had a celebratory buka puasa on my last night in the office.

Toni cutting the birthday cake

I forgot to take a photo of the banquet we had that night. Even thought there were about 15 of us (most of whom had not eaten all day), we barely made a dent.

The fellas looking unpleased

I got this great photo of the security guards and Amir (the office clerk) looking very tough and rather unhappy about my taking photos. The following photo is a more accurate depiction of their usual demeanors.

The fellas looking cheerier

Amir the no.1 Office Clerk in the universe

Toni and Puti, the cool kids who give me a false impression of Aceh's young people

The knowledge of my probable return to Aceh in the new year eased the seriousness of the goodbyes with my colleagues, and I’ll be exchanging emails for work frequently enough that we won’t have time to miss each other…but I experienced a very strange almost vertigo-like feeling as I packed up my things and left the office that night. It was as though my body was telling me “noooooo, no no no, you are not leaving this place just yet…what about our cute little office, and what about our great team of people…we were just getting started…”

I received three lovely gifts that night. My boss had a shirt tailored for me in Malaysia and even though she guessed the size, it fits perfectly. I think it’s the first shirt I’ve owned that I don’t need to roll up the sleaves. The senior consultant, who taught me so much about the tumultuous history of Indonesian activism, gave me some handmade batik from Java. And my other colleagues gave me a traditional embroidered Acehnese bag in a beautiful silver/gunmetal colour that I love.

Anyone who spoke to me in the first couple of months of my stay in Aceh can probably recall that I wasn’t always very satisfied with my work. I came into the office at a difficult time of transition. But slowly new members of the current team arrived and we did a lot of hard work to get things moving again. We built a cracker of a small team who worked harmoniously together and provided ongoing and bottomless support for each other when we needed it. We also had a lot of fun and felt perfectly comfortable storming in to each others’ offices to beat our heads against walls. Haha, that was fun. I’ll be glad to be back there next year.

Photos

Rijal gives Sarah a memento

Jess McLeod has posted some great photos from my last week in Aceh on facebook called

Sarah bids farewell to Aceh = the week that was. Ahhh, some truly hilarious photos there.