Two German tourists were arrested by the local authorities to wear swimwear while bathing on a beach in Lhokseumawe, Aceh.
University students Andrew Brown and Dominika Czatskova advantage of the beach Ujung Blang, Lhokseumawe April 12 when they were reported to the police by locals to wear bathing shorts a bikini. The residents complained to the Sharia police in Aceh religious authority whose main task is to apply the rules of Sharia in the province.
Brown and Czatskova were then taken for interrogation as they were considered to have violated the religious rules in Aceh. But the couple pleaded their innocence as they were unaware of the sharia unit in the province, saying they did not know they had done something wrong. This ultimately saved them to be legally processed.
As reported by BBC Indonesia , police chief of sharia in Lhokseumawe, M Irsyadi, decided to release the couple. "Local government [in Lhokseumawe] does not take itself too seriously because it was involuntary. They did this because they did not know [of the sharia law]," he told reporters.
Brown and Czatskova later issued a statement of apology to the people of Lhokseumawe before leaving the province Thursday, April 14.