As Aceh’s provincial Parliament began considering a more comprehensive Islamic criminal code earlier this year (2009), politicians and clerics at first agreed to defer the issue of stoning, which they generally agree is a punishment specified in the Koran for adultery.

But some lawmakers, apparently allied with radical clerics pushed for its inclusion at the last minute, former and current lawmakers said. Afraid of being branded bad Muslims, even lawmakers with reservations endorsed the law, lawmakers said. Six of the seven parties represented in Parliament voted for the law. The holdout — the Democratic Party, which is also President Yudhoyono’s — merely abstained.

“We never openly said that we were opposed to stoning,” said Yusrizal Ibrahim, 49, a Democratic Party member who served as a lawmaker until last month. “Stoning is part of Shariah, and by voting ‘No,’ it would have made it look as though we were against Islam.”

But even the local members’ abstention drew a rebuke from a high-ranking party official in Jakarta. “He told us that if there was no other party opposing it, we should have gone with the flow,” Mr. Ibrahim said.

He added he believed that “stoning was against human rights.” But he said he would have never “dared to say so explicitly in Parliament” for fear of being labeled an “infidel.”