3 - Islam, Religious Minorities, and the Challenge of the Blasphemy Laws: A Close Look at the Current Liberal Muslim Discourse

Summary

Debates on religious freedom and religious minorities have become more intense in post-New Order Indonesia. This is partly attributed to the increasing attention given to the international human rights discourse in the country's constitutional-legal framework of human rights. During the period of constitutional reforms (1999–2002), a new chapter on Human Rights, which includes provisions on freedom of religion or belief, was inserted into the 1945 Constitution. As noted by some scholars, this new chapter in the Constitution largely reflects the provisions contained in major international human rights documents. Moreover, a number of key international human rights covenants, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which contains international norms on freedom of religion or belief, were ratified by the Indonesian government, politically and legally signifying its commitment to international human rights law. This led to significant questions and debates about how and to what extent the largely secular-liberal international human rights discourse should be interpreted and applied within the Indonesian constitutional, political, and cultural context.

These questions featured prominently in the recent public and legal debate on Law No. 1/PNPS/1965 on the Prevention of Abuse of Religion and/or Blasphemy (the “Blasphemy Law”). The Law, which prohibits and criminalizes religious interpretations or practices considered “deviant” from the core tenets of six “official” religions in Indonesia (Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism), was recently reviewed by the Indonesian Constitutional Court. The application for the judicial review of the Law was submitted to the Constitutional Court in late 2009 by the Religious Freedom Advocacy Team (Tim Advokasi Kebebasan Beragama), a coalition of human rights lawyers and activists. The Team requested the Court to repel the Law arguing that, among other things, it contradicted the provisions on freedom of religion or belief in the Indonesian Constitution and internationally recognized human rights law. In April 2010, after an intense public debate and a long series of court hearings, the Court decided that there were insufficient grounds to revoke the Law, declaring it valid. Contrary to the Religious Freedom Advocacy Team's arguments, the Court found no contradiction between the Law and the Indonesian constitutional provisions on religious freedom, suggesting that Indonesia has its own unique conception of religious freedom.