The religious police in Aceh were caught peeping through bedroom windows at the World Food Programme headquarters in Banda Aceh.

The police, called Wilayatul Hisbah (WH), who specialise in seeking out immoral behaviour, raided the WFP headquarters on August 17th, Indonesian independence day, reports say. Thirty men, both WH officers and regular policemen, forced their way into the compound of the World Food Programme (WFP) at around 11pm, in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, despite protests from UN guards.

While wandering around the compound, which contains both offices and residences for foreign UN workers, the sharia enforcers were seen to peer into bedrooms where UN workers were sleeping. Barry Cane, a WFP spokesman, said:

I don’t even want to speculate [on their motives].

Another aid worker suggested that the WH intended to catch out westerners drinking alcohol at the compound’s private bar.

Following the raid, which was a violation of international conventions on diplomatic privilege and immunity, the United Nations filed a complaint to the regional government in Aceh. Cane says:

The matter was taken up with the provincial government, which apologized.

A UN security official is evidently in Aceh now investigating the incident. Cane however said that the WFP remained concerned that sharia police would attempt to raid the compound again, even while knowing that it is a diplomatic mission protected by international conventions.

The incident was not publicly acknowledged by the UN or by Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry, nor did the local media report on it. A Deutsche Presse Agentur journalist was told privately by a UN official that:

No one wants to make a big deal about it publicly at the moment. It’s a very sensitive issue, but there was no attempt to cover it up.

The Indonesian parliament granted the province of Aceh the right to implement Islamic sharia law in 2003. Since then, gradually, the noose has begun to tighten, as religious authorities take increasingly bold steps to enforce their authority over the people.