BANDA ACEH, April 7 -- A couple was publicly flogged in Indonesia's staunchly Islamic Aceh province today for having sex outside of marriage, an AFP reporter witnessed, in the country's only region to apply a version of Sharia law.

The man and woman, whose ages were not disclosed, received 100 cane lashes each in a public park in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, with dozens of people watching.

"We implement Islamic law in Aceh, so whenever someone violates it, we have to carry out punishments like the caning we just conducted," Rajesh Kana, an official from the local prosecutors' office, told AFP.

Sexual relations between unmarried people are outlawed in Aceh.

Police flogged the pair with a rattan cane, according to an AFP reporter...