Saturday, December 17, 2011

Up the Indonesian Punx!




link

Indonesian Policemen Forcibly Shave Off Punks' Mohawks To Promote 'Good Moral Values'

Aceh is a semi-autonomous region of Indonesia. Believing in far more conservative Muslim values than the rest of the Asian archipelago nation, they do things many wouldn't expect of Indonesia - like, say, forcibly shaving off punks' mohawks at rock gigs.

Keen to promote strict Islamic moral values, Aceh police "busted" a group of 100 or so punks at a concert near the province's capital, Banda Aceh, on Saturday.

In total, five women and 59 men, mostly teenagers, were driven to a police detention center in Aceh Besar where they shaved off their mohawks, removed their peircings and forced them to engage in "military-style discipline classes".

Religious teaching was also given to the 64 young punks over the course of the 10-day rehabilitation program - but it seems the compulsory shaving was what really bothered them:

"Why? Why my hair?!" said Fauzan, a twenty-year-old punk. "We didn't hurt anyone. This is how we've chosen to express ourselves. Why are they treating us like criminals?"

Local police chief Iskandar Hasan has his own side to the story:

"We're not torturing anyone," said Hasan. "We're not violating human rights. We're just trying to put them back on the right moral path.