BIREUN, Indonesia (AP) – Fifteen convicted gamblers were flogged Friday for illegal gaming in Indonesia – the first time caning was used as punishment in the world’s most populous Muslim country.

After traditional Friday prayers, the 15 convicts were brought to a stage erected outside a mosque, where about 600 people gathered to watch in Bireun, a town in the semiautonomous Aceh region.

Religious officials wearing masks to conceal their identities struck the men on their backs with rattan canes. The blows did not break the skin and the men did not appear in extreme pain. At least one smiled and laughed during the caning.

“I am ready to be punished, but what about everyone else, including big time corruptors and thieves?” said Zakaria, 60, the oldest man beaten. “They should also be whipped.”

Aceh, a highly conservative region, enjoys semiautonomy from the central government because of a long-running Islamic insurgency.

Indonesia has a policy of secularism, and attempts by religious hard-liners to have Islamic Sharia law, including corporal punishment, adopted nationally have failed.

But Aceh implemented a version of Sharia in 2001 under a special autonomy package offered by the government to try to defuse its Islamic rebellion.

Many observers view Friday’s punishments as an attempt by the government to undercut support for the rebels. The rebels say they don’t support corporal punishment.

Corruption is rife in Aceh, and some commentators questioned why the men, all of whom were poor traders or laborers caught gambling small amounts of money, were chosen to be punished.

“The eyes of the law should look at the crimes against humanity perpetrated against the Acehnese people during military operations, not just gambling,” the Koran Tempo newspaper said in an editorial. “This is not justice.”

Accusations of corruption surfaced before Friday’s canings. Several of those beaten said they had paid the equivalent of $50 to a prosecutor to escape the punishment.

The prosecutor, Erwin Nasution, acknowledged to reporters he received the money, but said it was “a gesture of thanks from the men because the sentence had been formally passed down.”

Other Indonesian neighbors, such as Singapore and Malaysia, use canings as punishments for a variety of crimes.

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