A Sharia court in Indonesia’s religious conservative province sentenced two men to public caning last February 24th for allegedly having gay sex.

The two men, aged 24 and 18, were arrested last November 7th in the autonomous province of Aceh after neighborhood vigilantes in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh suspected them of being gay and broke into their rented room to catch them naked and hugging each other.

The lead judge said the two college students were “legally and convincingly“ proven to have had gay sex and would receive 85 and 80 strokes, respectively, as punishment.

“During the trial, it was proven that the defendants committed illicit acts, including kissing and having sex,“ the judge, who goes by a single name, Sakwanah, said. “As Muslims, the defendants should uphold the Shariah law that prevails in Aceh.”

She also said the three-judge panel decided against imposing the maximum sentence of 100 lashes because the convicted were outstanding students who were polite in court, cooperated with authorities, and had no previous convictions.

Prosecutors previously demanded each get 80 strokes, but the judges decided on a harsher punishment for the older man because they believed he was the one who had encouraged and provided a place for sexual relations.

The prosecutors and lawyers of the two men said they would accept the sentence and would not file a motion to appeal it.

Aceh is considered to be more devout and more conservative than other parts of Muslim-majority Indonesia, and it is the only province allowed in the Southeast Asian island nation to practice Sharia law.

Indonesia’s secular central government, which does not have any laws against homosexuality, granted Aceh the right to observe a version of Sharia law in 2006 as part of a peace deal that would give more autonomy to the western province to end a separatist war.

Since then, the Sharia legal system in Aceh has expanded, with a religious police force and court system being established, and more than 100 people being caned each year for crimes from gay sex to unmarried sex.

Aceh implemented an extension of Islamic bylaws and criminal code in 2015 that would also apply to the province’s non-Muslims, which account for about 0.1% of the population and include Buddhists and Christians.

Caning is also a punishment for other violations against Islamic laws, such as gambling, drinking, and those who skip Friday prayers.

Human rights groups have criticized Aceh’s laws, arguing they violate international treaties Indonesia signed that would protect the rights of minorities.

While the Indonesian government has no power to strike down Sharia law in Aceh, it pressured the province to drop an earlier version of a law that would allow people found guilty of adultery to be stoned to death.