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Banda Aceh. Beginning January, Muslim women in West Aceh district will have to make sure their pants are not too tight lest they run afoul of the province’s feared religious police.

If caught violating the new regulation, “their pants will be cut up on the spot and replaced with a skirt provided free of charge by the government of West Aceh,” district head Ramli Mansur said.

In fact, he said the government had already ordered 7,000 skirts of various sizes from Jakarta to be distributed by Shariah police to women caught with tight-fitting pants during raids.

Ramli said the new regulations, which will prevent Muslim women from wearing tight, curve-revealing clothing and Muslim men from wearing shorts, was issued at the behest of local clerics who asked the government to implement Shariah law as thoroughly as possible in the district.

“The law does not prohibit women from wearing pants. What’s prohibited is wearing tight-fitting pants or jeans,” he said. “If, for instance, they have to wear pants, they have to cover their ankles and wear a loose skirt over it.”

Clothing vendors have also been urged not to sell tight-fitting pants to Muslim women.

Ramli, a former guerilla fighter for the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), said that the rules would only apply to Muslims.

“We still honor the rights of non-Muslims, so they don’t need to fear,” he said.

According to Ramli, the number of Muslim women who already dressed according to the regulation was about 20 percent.

Over the next two months, the West Aceh authorities will conduct awareness-raising campaigns for the regulations. One such method, Ramli said, would be to encourage government employees to refuse to serve Muslims wearing “un-Islamic” clothing.

“Government staff who disobey the regulations themselves will be dismissed from their posts,” he said, although he said that staff members would be given warnings first.

Ramli acknowledged that the regulation would stir public controversy.

“If people disagree, don’t be mad at me — be angry at God, because what I impose is religious law,” he said.

“In the afterlife, I will be asked by God, what have I done for the people of West Aceh during my term in office. What I am doing now is enforcing thorough Islamic law.”

Acehnese women’s rights activist, Syarifah Rahmatillah, said in Banda Aceh that West Aceh’s decision seemed hasty and without a legal foundation.

“In the qanun on Shariah, there is mention of Muslims having to dress according to Islamic law, but there is no detail as to what constitutes Islamic clothing — so we cannot just make up the rules,” said the executive director of the Women’s Partnership forum (MISPI) in Aceh.

Syarifah said there were a number of other things the government could do regarding the application of Shariah in Aceh, including public welfare, sanitation and corruption.

“Other regions in Indonesia want to see Shariah succeed in Aceh, but since it was put in effect in 2001, all we seem to be dealing with is women’s clothing,” she said.

“There is a tendency to view Islamic law from just a very narrow perspective.

“Just look at the bathrooms at government offices in Aceh. Do they reflect Islamic values, since many of them are dirty and the water sometimes doesn’t run? And that’s just one example,” she added.

Syarifah suggested that before imposing the regulation, West Aceh take measures to support the implementation of Shariah that does not merely focus on the punitive aspects.

“In his three years in office in West Aceh, what has Ramli accomplished that he is now reduced to handling such trifling issues,” she said.

“Many of his people still live below the poverty line; he should give his priority to people’s welfare because that is an important issue endorsed by Islam.”