Hundreds of spectators, including children, watched as a masked sharia officer lashed the offenders as they winced in pain.
BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA: A group of unmarried couples were whipped in Indonesia's Aceh province on Thursday after they were caught behaving amorously -- a crime under the conservative region's Islamic law.
Flogging is common for a range of offences in the region at the tip of Sumatra island, including gambling, drinking alcohol and having gay sex.
It is the only province in the world's biggest Muslim-majority country that imposes Islamic law.
The five couples flogged Thursday received between four and 22 strokes from a rattan cane outside a mosque in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, after they served several months in prison.
Religious police caught the amorous couples cuddling and holding hands or, in some cases, having sex.