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Couple publicly caned after alleged TikTok kiss sparks outrage in Indonesia
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A young couple in Indonesia was publicly caned Thursday after allegedly kissing during a TikTok livestream.
The couple — a 22-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman — each received 21 lashes, according to the Associated Press (AP).
They were reportedly convicted of violating local morality laws under an Islamic sharia court in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province.
The pair, who were detained in March, had already spent four months in prison prior to the punishment, which ultimately reduced their sentence from 25 lashes to 21, the AP said.
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Shariah law officials assist an unmarried woman, convicted of violating Islamic law by kissing during a TikTok livestream, to get up after being publicly caned, in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)
According to local authorities, the couple filmed a TikTok video inside a car one night in March.
As the video went viral, they were subsequently apprehended for what officials described as an «immoral act.»
«Their actions were uncovered thanks to reports from residents who were disturbed by their immoral livestream content,» Sharia police said in April.
«The trigger was their livestream on TikTok while engaging in immoral acts in the car,» Head of the Sharia Police Muhammad Rizal added in his statement. «This sparked criticism from netizens and local residents, who then reported them to the authorities.»
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A man is publicly caned after he was convicted of violating Islamic law by kissing during a TikTok livestream, in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)
The court also confiscated a cellphone and a USB flash drive containing the TikTok video, which authorities promised to destroy, according to the AP.
A Banda Aceh resident who attended the caning, 22-year-old Aini Nadhirah, said she believed the punishment was «entirely justified.»
«In my opinion, this caning is entirely justified because it serves as a warning to other Aceh residents to be more careful when using social media,» Nadhirah said, according to the AP.
«It also raises awareness that such actions are unacceptable, thereby educating the public.»
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Aceh is the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia that enforces its own Islamic Criminal Code governing moral conduct.
The province’s right to implement Islamic law was granted by Indonesia’s secular central government around 2005 as part of a peace deal to end a separatist insurgency. The policy was later expanded to apply to non-Muslims as well.
Under the law, moral offenses — including adultery and same-sex relations — can carry penalties of up to 100 lashes. Caning is also used for individuals accused of gambling, drinking, adultery and premarital intimacy.
Shariah law officials escort a woman convicted of violating Islamic law by kissing a man, both unmarried, during a TikTok livestream after her public caning, in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)
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Public caning in Aceh has long drawn criticism from human rights groups, including Amnesty International Indonesia, which has called the practice cruel and degrading.
Despite Indonesia having ratified international conventions prohibiting cruel punishment, local authorities in Aceh defend the practice, arguing it does not fall under such definition.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
asia world regions, islam, crime world, human rights united nations
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Secret Service missed ‘multiple opportunities’ to prevent Trump assassination attempt: watchdog
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The U.S. Secret Service «missed multiple opportunities» to prevent or disrupt the July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump as he spoke to supporters during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General said in a report released Thursday.
The 64-page document detailed several lapses in security that allowed Thomas Matthew Crooks to get a line of sight of Trump as he stood on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, during the July 13, 2024, event.
«The Secret Service’s overall lack of policy and processes coupled with limited intelligence sharing and poor collaboration and communication with protectee staff and state and local law enforcement set the conditions that led to missing opportunities to prevent and detect the attempted assassination,» the report states.
Among the OIG’s findings was a failure to warn Trump’s protective detail that Crooks had a range finder and a long gun and had climbed onto the roof of a nearby building due to a lack of communication between the Secret Service and local law enforcement.
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Republican candidate Donald Trump with blood on his face surrounded by Secret Service agents as he is taken off the stage at a campaign event at Butler Farm Show Inc. in Butler, Pa., July 13, 2024. A Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report released Thursday detailed several mistakes made by the U.S. Secret Service that could have prevented or disrupted the shooting, officials said. (Getty Images/Rebecca Droke)
Instead, they operated out of separate locations 257 yards apart with intermittent and highly limited radio connectivity between them.
As a result, the Secret Service missed 102 radio transmissions regarding an increasingly intense search for a suspicious individual, including alerts that the suspect was on the roof with a long gun.
A flag is displayed during Donald Trump’s campaign rally as he returns to the site of the July assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pa., Oct. 5, 2024. (Reuters/Brian Snyder)
Because the Secret Service communications room only received a handful of phone calls and texts, agents failed to recognize the urgency of the threat and never warned Trump’s protective detail to delay the speech or remove him from the stage, the OIG said.
«Communications was a problem because of inoperability. There were too many command posts,» Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent, told Fox News Digital. «The biggest failure that is probably not addressed in the OIG report is that they never should have accepted the risk of doing it at this site. It never should have been done. That roof had an egregious line of site.»
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Crooks was able to fire eight shots. Trump was grazed in the ear, and Corey Comperatore, 50, who was attending the rally, was killed. Two other spectators were critically injured but survived.
Moments after Trump was shot, Secret Service agents rushed the stage and moved him to safety.
In addition to a lack of communication, the Secret Service failed to detect Crooks’ drone flight that he used to view the campaign event stage less than three hours before the rally due to an under-trained operator and an equipment malfunction, the report states.
Crooks flew the drone undetected for almost nine minutes and flew 471 yards from the event stage at an altitude of 102 feet. During the rally, the Secret Service had a counter-drone system on site, but it malfunctioned.
The counter-drone system was not operational when Crooks flew his drone hours before he tried to kill Trump.
A U.S. Secret Service agent, left, protects President Donald Trump, right. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The agency also failed to share intelligence about a long-distance threat to Trump with the Pittsburgh field office and agents on site, the report said.
Agents also failed to secure the area outside the security perimeter and did not use available resources to block Crooks’ line of sight from the roof of the American Glass Research International building to Trump despite the line of sight being identified as a concern, the OIG said.
Despite identifying the AGR complex as a line-of-sight vulnerability during advanced walkthroughs, the Secret Service failed to ensure the view to the stage was obstructed.
«There should have been a better advance, more officers, more agents, but there’s simply a limit to that,» Eckloff said.
Officials originally proposed using trucks already onsite to block the view from the AGR complex, but Trump’s campaign staff rejected the idea because it would interfere with press photographs.
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An agent proposed a secondary location for the trucks but never verified that the campaign staff actually moved the equipment. As a result, Crooks had an unobstructed view of Trump’s podium from a distance of just 155 yards, the report said.
The turnout coat of Corey Comperatore, a retired volunteer fire department chief who was shot and killed in the July assassination attempt against Donald Trump, in the stands during a moment of silence during a rally in Butler, Pa., Oct. 5, 2024. (Reuters/Carlos Barria)
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Fox News Digital has reached out to the Secret Service and the White House.
The report offered several recommendations to improve the Secret Service’s processes for securing events, such as mandatory threat communication, enhanced counter-drone training and a process to formally document the identification and blocking of line-of-sight vulnerabilities.
security, news events, homeland security, donald trump, national security
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A un año de las elecciones presidenciales francesas, ya hay 46 candidatos: ¿Quiénes regresan al ruedo?
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Ex-Obama advisor mocked after questioning Chicago’s response to unconscious man: ‘Own a mirror?’
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David Axelrod, a Democratic political consultant and strategist, received backlash online for noting that emergency services in Chicago had declined to assist a seemingly homeless man outside the Art Institute of Chicago.
«An elderly man, probably homeless, was sprawled unconscious on the museum’s front stone steps in the midst of a heat emergency. I called 911, and the operator said, ‘Well, is he ASKING for help?’ When I said no, she said, ‘Well, I’m not going to send anyone.’ So the man remained, passed out in the blazing noon sun. I guess that’s how the City of Chicago deals with such situations,» Axelrod wrote.
«I hope we’re not all complicit in assisting an unintended suicide,» Axelrod, the chief strategist for Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential victories, said.
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Former Obama advisor David Axelrod (Screenshot/HBO)
His comments sparked mockery online when observers highlighted similar encounters in a number of other Dem-run cities in the U.S.
«David Axelrod comes face to face with Democratic policies in action… turns out he doesn’t like them very much,» Abigail Jackson, a White House deputy press secretary, observed on X.
GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s deputy chief counsel, Erielle Azerrad, said, «Anyone who lived in the Mission district of SF has like 20 stories like this.»
«It’s awful to hear. It’s also why most of us who have witnessed it are so vehemently opposed to socialist nonsense ruining our once awesome cities. Welcome to the party, dude,» she continued.
«Democrat policy which you dedicated your career to impose,» New York Post columnist Miranda Devine posted on X.
«Does David Axelrod own a mirror?» conservative strategist Steve Guest wondered.
Earlier this year, the city, led by Mayor Brandon Johnson, launched a five-year homelessness initiative with the goal of making homelessness «rare, brief and nonrecurring.» The plan centers on seven core strategies, including emergency services, housing, health, education, employment, community cohesion and systems alignment.
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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has launched a community engagement effort called Repair Chicago to gather experiences of harm of Black Chicagoans as part of an effort to implement reparations. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
The plan does not come with a stated budget expectation but partners with several other city programs, such as a $1.2 billion housing initiative.
At least one other Democratic voice bashed Axelrod’s description and the city’s response.
«This is awful and unacceptable. In a case like this or a freezing/blizzard spell, the city must mobilize to render necessary aid, even if its refused,» Susana Mendoza, a candidate for Chicago mayor, said in her own post.
«Despite all the talk from this mayor and his administration about helping people like this in urgent need, they have abandoned them.»
Notably, Axelrod described how the man had spoken with security at the Art Institute but declined to move or accept assistance.
«I asked a museum security guard about it and she said she had woken him 3 times and suggested he move into the shade and he refused each time,» Axelrod wrote.
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A scenic view of Chicago (iStock)
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When asked about the situation, the Art Institute of Chicago confirmed to Fox News Digital that a man had been outside the building and added that he had departed.
«We are aware that a museum security officer checked on an individual on the front steps and that person left on their own accord shortly after,» the institute said in a statement.
homeless crisis, politics, state and local, chicago
Secret Service missed ‘multiple opportunities’ to prevent Trump assassination attempt: watchdog
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