Indonesian cops round up punks at concert, shave off their mohawks

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Indonesian cops round up punks at concert, shave off their mohawks

Police in Indonesia’s most conservative province raided a punk-rock concert and detained 65 fans, buzzing off their spiky mohawks and stripping away body piercings because of the perceived threat to Islamic values. Oh, those fun Muslims.

Dog-collar necklaces and chains also were taken from the youths before they were thrown in pools of water for “spiritual” cleansing, local police chief Iskandar Hasan said.

After replacing their “disgusting” clothes, he handed each a toothbrush and barked “use it.”

The crackdown marked the latest effort by authorities to promote strict moral values in Aceh, the only province in this secular but predominantly Muslim nation of 240 million to have imposed Islamic laws.

Here, adultery is punishable by stoning to death. Homosexuals have been thrown in jail or lashed in public with rattan canes. Women are forced to wear headscarves and told, please, no tight pants.

It’s not clear why police decided to hone in on punks.

Though pierced and tattooed teens have complained for months about harassment, Saturday’s roundup at a concert attended by more than 100 people was by far the biggest and most dramatic bust yet.

Baton-wielding police scattered fans, many of whom had travelled from other parts of the sprawling archipelagic nation to attend the show.

Hasan said 59 young men and five women were loaded into vans and brought to a police detention centre 60 kilometres from the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.

They would spend 10 days getting rehabilitation, training in military-style discipline and religious classes, including Koran recitation, he said. Afterward, they’ll be sent home.

Twenty-year-old punker, Fauzan, was mortified.

“Why? Why my hair?!” he said, pointing to his cleanly shaven head. “We didn’t hurt anyone. This is how we’ve chosen to express ourselves. Why are they treating us like criminals?”

The women, some in tears, were given short, blunt bobs.