The trauma that one couple in Tangerang is going through is unimaginable. Not only were they falsely accused of committing an “immoral act” out of wedlock, they were stripped naked, assaulted, and paraded on the streets of their village for an hour — photos and videos of the incident quicky going viral throughout the country.
But the couple, who were engaged at the time the incident, can at least no longer worry about false accusations about intimacy out of wedlock. Yesterday, the couple wed at one of their parents’ house in a ceremony that was facilitated and attended by the local police.
“Today they are being wed in accordance to their religion first. We will later help them so that this marriage is registered by the state as well,” said Tangerang Regency Police Chief Sabilul Alif, as quoted by Kompas yesterday.
“Of course, psychologically, the two are still traumatized. We hope that this wedding will help alleviate their burden.”
The couple identified by police by their initials R and MA, previously did not have a wedding date set. Having gone through so much hardship already, one would hope this wedding was their choice and not the result of even more societal pressure against them.
Six people have been arrested for the couple’s public humiliation on November 11, the latest of them being the local neighborhood chief. Each of them could face at least five years in prison for assault.
The case became widely covered in Indonesia after several videos went viral, showing the visibly distressed couple being forced out of the female victim’s house onto the street by the vigilantes, who berated them for supposedly being indecent. While the man was already naked at the beginning of the videos, the woman had a t-shirt on, but the vigilantes soon forcefully stripped her completely naked, despite her ear-piercing screams for mercy. The couple were also beaten on several occasions while they were paraded around the village — which lasted for about an hour.
The police said the vigilantes also deliberately took photos and recorded the public humiliation before posting the footage online.
Sabilul said that the police are still hunting down who created and posted the footage online.
Parades of shame for adulterers or anyone found getting intimate outside of wedlock are sadly common in parts of Indonesia, especially in rural areas, and the abusers often escape any criminal charges. In August, a couple who had allegedly committed adulter were paraded through the streets of a village in East Java, only for the police to charge the man for adultery but not the neighborhood busybodies who abused the couple.
A similar raid on consenting adulterers also occurred in Tangerang in January. The people who forcefully paraded the couple were also not charged with any crime.
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