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No breakthrough in efforts to resolve blasphemy cases
As Indonesia shifts to a less-tolerant, more conservative way of thinking as attested in previous blasphemy cases, it is critical to educate the masses to think independently and avoid unfounded assumptions and judgements based on preconceived ideas and logic created for them by influential (religious) leaders.
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Not guilty: Suzethe Margaret (center) and her husband Firdaus (second left) arrive at their home after the Cibinong District Court acquitted Suzethe of blasphemy charges on Feb. 5. The panel of judges found her not guilty because she was suffering from schizophrenia when she entered a mosque with her shoes on and with a dog in June last year. (JP/Theresia Sufa)
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ogic has led to the acquittal of all charges of Suzethe Margaret, a schizophrenic Catholic woman previously indicted on blasphemy charges for wearing shoes and bringing a dog inside a mosque, even though she was proven to have committed blasphemy against Islam.
This ruling, handed down on Feb. 5 at the Cibinong District Court in West Java, exactly follows the very reasoning that criminal law expert witness Bintatar Sinaga from the Pakuan University in Bogor offered up in his testimony on Nov. 18, 2019.
Acting as a witness for the defense, Bintatar told the court that prosecutors had successfully proven that one of the required constituent elements of a crime as stated in the indictment filed to the court, that is, the physical act of committing the crime, had been present.
Read also: After months-long trial, schizophrenic Bogor woman absolved of blasphemy charge
After all, Suzethe’s conduct of entering the Al-Munawaroh mosque in Sentul, West Java, while wearing shoes and bringing a dog is an established, undeniable fact, Bintatar said. So, if this conduct is construed by the prosecutors as blasphemy against Islam, her act of blasphemy was thus proven.
However, although Suzethe retained her intellectual capacity when committing the act, which explains why she was able to safely drive a car from her home to the mosque and took off her shoes after the mosque’s “take off your shoes when you come in” sign being shown to her, she was at that time devoid of mental capacity, Bintatar said. In other words, he added, she was not in her right mind.
Imam Nahe’i, an expert in Islamic law, fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and usūl al-fiqh (principles of Islamic jurisprudence) from Ma’had Aly, an institute for higher education in Islamic studies in Situbondo, East Java, said in his testimony that “those committing such deeds unconsciously, that is, without realizing what they are doing, certainly have no intention of degrading [Islam].
