Brickbat: Raising Cane

In Indonesia's Aceh province, which enforces strict Islamic sharia law, a woman and her partner were each publicly caned 140 times in a town square for having sex outside of marriage and drinking alcohol. They received 100 lashes for the premarital sex and 40 for the alcohol, marking one of the harshest sentences in the 25 years since sharia was introduced in 2001. The woman collapsed during the flogging and had to be carried on a stretcher to an ambulance afterward. They were among six people punished that day, including a sharia police officer and his female partner who were each caned 23 times for being close to each other in a private place.