Eight Indonesians caught not wearing face masks in public were forced to dig graves for Covid-19 victims as a punishment for violating the country’s face mask laws. The sanction was proposed by Suyono, the East Java District leader due to the shortage of gravediggers in the region. The leader expects that the punishment will act as a deterrent to anyone breaking the face mask ordinance. Indonesia is enforcing stricter health protocols to somehow stop the increasing Coronavirus cases in the country.
USA Today: Two people are assigned to each grave — one to dig the grave, and another to insert wooden boards in the holes to support the bodies
USA Today describes that for the eight people who violated the local mask mandate were punished by making them dig graves. The district’s leader, identified by Indonesian news site Tribun News as Suyono, proposed the punishment due to a lack of gravediggers in the area.
“There are only three available gravediggers at the moment, so I thought I might as well put these people to work with them,” he told Tribun News. “Hopefully, this can create a deterrent effect against violations,” he said.
Two people are assigned to each grave — one to dig the grave, and another to insert wooden boards in the holes to support the bodies. Cremation and embalming are not permitted in Indonesia, and bodies are traditionally buried without a casket.
New York Post: The province of East Java punished the mask violators with the manual labor at a local cemetery
According to New York Post, the province of East Java punished the mask violators with the manual labor at a local cemetery in hopes of deterring others from disregarding the nationwide face-covering mandate.
None of the rule breakers were forced to handle the corpses. Only local health officials wearing full-body protective equipment are allowed to do so to limit the risk of exposure.
