Earlier, a top Christian politician was imprisoned for blasphemy denting the moderate image of the nation.

A Sharia court in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province has sentenced two gay men to public caning for the first time, further tarnishing the country’s moderate image after a top Christian politician was imprisoned for blasphemy.

The court on Wednesday said the men, aged 20 and 23, would each be subjected to 85 lashes for having sexual relations. One of the men cried as his sentence was read out and pleaded for leniency. The chief prosecutor, Gulmaini, who goes by one name, said they will be caned next week, before Ramadan starts on about May 25.

The couple was arrested in late March after neighbourhood vigilantes in the provincial capital Banda Aceh suspected them of being gay and broke into their rented room to catch them having sex. Mobile phone footage that circulated online and formed part of the evidence shows one of the men naked and visibly distressed as he apparently calls for help on his cellphone. The second man is repeatedly pushed by another man who is preventing the couple from leaving the room.

Rights groups fume

International human rights groups have described the treatment of the men as abusive and humiliating and called for their immediate release. Human Rights Watch said in April that public caning would constitute torture under international law.

Prosecutors had asked for 80 lashes.

The lead judge, Khairil Jamal, said the men were “legally and convincingly proven to have committed gay sex.”

“As Muslims, the defendants should uphold the Sharia law that prevails in Aceh,” Mr. Jamal said.

Indonesia’s reputation for practising a moderate form of Islam has been battered in the past year due to attacks on religious minorities, a surge in persecution of gays and a polarising election campaign for Governor of the capital Jakarta that highlighted the growing strength of hard-line Islamic groups.

Earlier this month, the outgoing Jakarta Governor, a minority Christian, was sentenced to two years in prison for campaign comments deemed as blaspheming the Koran. The judges also imposed a tougher sentence than sought by prosecutors who had ultimately downgraded the charge from blasphemy and asked for just two years of probation.

Not just in Aceh

Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia allowed to practice Sharia law, which was a concession made by the national government in 2006 to end a war with separatists, but some other areas too have introduced Sharia-style bylaws.

Aceh implemented an expanded Islamic criminal code two years ago that allows up to 100 lashes for morality offences, including gay sex.

Caning is also a punishment for adultery, gambling, drinking alcohol, women who wear tight clothes and men who skip Friday prayers. More than 300 people were caned for such offences last year.