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Human Rights Watch urges Indonesia to repeal Blasphemy Law
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Staying firm – Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama (center) has his picture taken with Jakarta residents at his campaign team headquarters Rumah Lembang in Menteng, Central Jakarta, last Friday. (Antara/Hafidz Mubarak A.)
A
n international NGO has urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to take seriously his pledge to promote religious pluralism in Indonesia by removing laws that can be used to persecute religious minorities and have become a basis for religious discrimination.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) Asia deputy director Phelim Kine said President Jokowi should work to have Indonesia’s Blasphemy Law, Article 156a of the Criminal Code (KUHP) and similar laws taken off the books.
The Blasphemy Law makes deviations from the central tenets of the six officially recognized religions punishable by up to five years in prison.
He said the Blasphemy Law had been used to prosecute and imprison members of religious minorities and of traditional religions. He cited recent targets of the law, including three former leaders of the Gafatar community following the eviction of more than 7,000 members of the group from their homes in Kalimantan earlier this year.
The Blasphemy Law also had been used as the legal basis for a number of government regulations that facilitated official discrimination on the basis of religion, he went on.
“These include a June 2008 government decree that ordered members of the Ahmadiyah community to cease all public religious activities on the grounds that they deviated from the principal teachings of Islam and threatened violators with up to five years in prison,” Kine said in a statement on Tuesday.
Blasphemy charges against Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama have sparked renewed calls for the repeal of the law.
Ahok fulfilled the National Police's summons for his first questioning as a suspect on Tuesday morning. (ebf)
