TWO men were sentenced today to public caning for having homosexual relations in Indonesia’s Aceh province.

The couple, aged 20 and 21, were arrested in April after religious police in the province — the only part of Indonesia to apply sharia law — broke into a toilet that they had been reported entering together and found them kissing.

They were each sentenced to be caned 80 times. The trial at the Islamic Sharia District Court in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, was held behind closed doors. Judges have the authority to limit public access to a trial if the case relates to adultery and open it only for the verdict.

This is the fifth time Aceh has sentenced people to be caned for homosexuality since sharia law was implemented in 2015, in a concession from the Indonesian government aimed at ending a long-running Islamist insurgency.