Local authorities in Indonesia ordered eight people who broke the country’s face mask laws to dig graves for COVID-19 victims, according to a report.
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, the Jakarta Post reported.
“There are only three available gravediggers at the moment, so I thought I might as well put these people to work with them,” politician Suyono told local media, according to the paper.
“Hopefully this can create a deterrent effect against violations,” he added.
None of the rulebreakers were forced to handle the corpses, the outlet reported. Only local health officials wearing full-body protective equipment are allowed to do so to limit the risk of exposure.
Indonesia has seen infections on the rise with more than 221,000 cases, including at least 8,841 deaths, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.
