All posts tagged: local authorities

Indonesian couple caned 140 times for sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol

Indonesian couple caned 140 times for sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol

Published by Sam Flores

A man and a woman in Indonesia’s Aceh province were publicly flogged on Thursday after being convicted of engaging in sex outside marriage and consuming alcohol, offences banned under the region’s Islamic legal code. Each received 140 lashes, a punishment that local authorities say ranks among the most severe handed down since sharia law was introduced in the province more than two decades ago. Aceh, located on the northern tip of Sumatra, is the only province in Indonesia permitted to enforce sharia law, following special autonomy granted by the central government in 2001. Under these rules, intimate relations between unmarried couples and alcohol consumption are criminal offences. A woman accused of having sex outside marriage reacts after being publicly caned by a member of the Sharia police in Banda Aceh on 29 January 2026 (AFP via Getty Images) The punishment was carried out in a public park in Banda Aceh, where the pair were struck repeatedly on their backs with a rattan cane as dozens of spectators looked on, AFP reported. The woman reportedly collapsed …

Council ‘can’t afford’ elections… but spends £30k on migrants’ mental health

Council ‘can’t afford’ elections… but spends £30k on migrants’ mental health

Published by Sam Flores

A Labour council that cancelled its local election to cut costs spent tens of thousands of pounds on an “asylum seeker mental health and trauma project”. Blackburn with Darwen borough council is one of 29 local authorities granted government permission to halt its local election this year. The cancellations have resulted in Sir Keir Starmer being accused of “running scared” of the electorate at a time when polls show a collapse in support for Labour. Defending Blackburn’s decision to ask the Government for a postponement, Phil Riley, the council’s Labour leader, previously said the council would “rather the money went on delivering services people want than on an election which would have to be repeated just a year later and on different ward boundaries”. “It costs around £200,000 to hold an election,” he added. However, the same local authority spent £30,000 on commissioning a project that focused on the mental health of asylum seekers, The Telegraph can reveal. A contract awarded in January 2024, when Mr Riley and his party were in control, granted the …