Police give punks forced haircuts in ‘re-education’

DOZENS of young punk rock concert-goers had their heads shaved and body piercings confiscated after police in Indonesia said they were a threat to Islamic values.

They were also stripped of dog-collar necklaces and chains and then thrown in pools of water for “spiritual” cleansing, police chief Iskandar Hasan said.

After replacing their “disgusting” clothes, he handed each a toothbrush and barked “use it”.

It was the latest effort by authorities to promote strict moral values in Aceh, the only province in the secular but predominantly Muslim nation of 240 million people to have imposed Islamic laws.

Adultery is punishable by stoning to death. Homosexuals have been thrown in jail or lashed in public with canes. Women are told, wearing headscarves is a must, but tight trousers are banned.

Punk rockers have complained for months about harassment, but the latest roundup was by far the most dramatic.

Baton-wielding police broke up the concert, scattering young music lovers.

Dozens were loaded into vans and taken to a police detention centre in the hills, 48km from the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, for “re-education”.

They will be held there for at least 10 days, after which they will be returned to their parents.

Twenty-year-old punk, Fauzan, was mortified.

“Why? Why my hair?” he asked, pointing to his cleanly shaven head. “We didn’t hurt anyone. This is how we’ve chosen to express ourselves. Why are they treating us like criminals?”

The women, some in tears, were given short, blunt bobs.

Hasan insisted he’d done nothing wrong.

“We’re not torturing anyone,” the police chief said. “We’re not violating human rights. We’re just trying to put them back on the right moral path.”

However, Nur Kholis, a national human rights commissioner, deplored the detentions, saying police have to explain what kinds of criminal laws have been broken.

“Otherwise, they violated people’s right of gathering and expression,” Kholis said, promising to investigate.

Aceh — where Islam first arrived in Indonesia from Saudi Arabia centuries ago — enjoys semiautonomy from the central government.

That was part of a peace deal negotiated after the 2004 tsunami that killed 170,000 people in the province convinced both separatist rebels and the army to lay down their arms.

Neither side wanted to add to people’s suffering.

Some local governments in other parts of the country — which has seen tremendous changes with lighting-speed economic growth and modernisation since the ouster of longtime dictator Suharto one decade ago — also have tried to ban “immoral” behaviour, like drinking alcohol, gambling and kissing in public.

They’ve met with limited success, however, largely because most of the country’s Muslims practise moderate forms of the faith.