More suggest revision of blasphemy law

Two more experts recommended Friday that the controversial 1965 Blasphemy Law be revised as critics warned of civil conflict if the law was changed.

The call came from noted intellectual Jalaludin Rakhmat and anthropologist Ahmad Fedyani Saifuddin.
Jalaludin said that while the country needed a law to regulate blasphemy, the law should not be used to criminalize those who developed new interpretations of religious dogmas.

But an expert witness presented by the government, Khofifah Indar Parawangsa, contested the views of the two experts, arguing that possible horizontal conflict was inevitable should the court decide to revoke the law.

Jalaludin said, “In the history of Islam, interpretations are omnipresent. Religion has been relevant through the ages because of new reconstructions in people’s understanding [of it].

“If we allow the blasphemy law to limit the reconstruction [process], we limit the role of religion.”