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Showing posts from January, 2013

The right of women to sit astride

Rights groups urged the Indonesian government yesterday to block a proposed law banning women from sitting astride motorcycles in deeply Islamic Aceh province, where the position is deemed “improper”. The mayor of Lhokseumawe city in Aceh, where sharia law is enforced, circulated a letter Monday explaining the obligation for women to sit side-saddle was “to avoid immoral acts”. “Adult women who are riding on the back of a motorbike… cannot straddle unless in an emergency,” mayor Suaidi Yahya’s letter read, adding that the ban included women straddling female drivers. The official explained last week that women sitting astride motorcycles would “provoke the male driver” and that it would be against Islamic law. The letter also proposed banning men and women from hugging and holding hands while on vehicles, and banning tight or scanty clothing in public. The move comes after leaders from Aceh, the country’s only province ruled by strict sharia law, drafted a series of new