INDONESIA seems an unlikely place to enforce sharia-based bylaws, given the discriminating way they are applied to the letter of the law on the lower layers of society, butprove toothless when they are applied on the elite and the upper class.

This is just one among a barrage of criticism directed at the implementation of sharia-based bylaws overthe past 10 years in Aceh, the so-called Veranda of Mecca. Clearly, theyhave only affected people in t