Jakarta, Indonesia - A former Aceh separatist leader on Monday criticised the enforcement of strict Islamic sharia law in the Indonesian province, saying it was alien to local culture.
"Our struggle has not been based on religion and this remains our position," Malik Mahmud, the former "prime minister" in exile of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) told a news conference.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation but only Aceh has the right to adopt sharia law in the judicial system.
Aceh courts received the right as part of an autonomy package Jakarta offered in an attempt to quell separatist passions in the province, where thousands died in a long-running insurgency.
"The imposition of Islamic sharia in Aceh has not been demanded by GAM and I think this is not what the Acehnese want," the Swedish-based Mahmud said, speaking after a conference to mark the first anniversary of the Helsinki peace accord.
Mahmud said Islam in Aceh had long blended with local traditions.
"So it is the first time that Islamic sharia is implemented in Aceh and people are arrested and lashed. This is not part of Islamic tradition in Aceh," he said.
A study by the International Crisis Group (ICG) released last month said sharia law in Aceh is popular in theory but in practice it encourages moral vigilantism and disproportionately targets women and the poor.
Aceh, on the tip of Sumatra island at sprawling Indonesia's western extreme, is the country's strongest Islamic province with an estimated 99 percent of the population following the faith.
The effort to develop and enforce Sharia has continued since the peace deal was reached with GAM.
Mahmud also said that former GAM combatants had had difficulty adjusting to civilian life and that the disbursement of cash promised by the government to the ex-rebels as part as the peace accord had been "quite slow."
Pieter Feith, the head of Asian and European monitors overseeing the peace pact, warned that former rebels could resort to crime if they did not receive government help.
An accord between GAM and the Indonesian government ended a 29-year separatist insurgency in which 15,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed.