Members of Ahmadiyah community file petition to revise blasphemy law in Indonesia’s Constitutional Court

Indonesia’s blasphemy law has been severely criticized by both international and local human rights activists who argue that it has been used to persecute and criminalize numerous minority groups within the vast archipelago nation. One of the groups hit hardest by the blasphemy law is the country’s Ahmadiyah community, who follow a sect of Islam that has officially been declared deviant by the government.

Under the auspices of the blasphemy law and other laws ostensibly meant to maintain “religious harmony”, the Ahmadiyah have been systematically discriminated against by the government and their communities have been the targets of numerous violent and sometimes deadly attacks in the last few years.

Recently, the community has become quite proactive in fighting for their legal rights. Yesterday, nine members of Jemaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia, from various regions of the country, came together to file a petition for judicial review against the blasphemy law with the Constitutional Court (MK).

Represented by their legal counsel, Fitria Sumarni, the applicants submitted the points of their petition for judicial review at the Constitutional Court in Central Jakarta on Monday.

Fitria said that Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the original 1965 blasphemy law has impaired the constitutional rights of her clients, noting that their vague wording allows them to be interpreted broadly. Article 1 prohibits the “deviant interpretation” of religious teachings while articles 2 and 3 give the government the power to banish deviant religious groups or punish them with imprisonment.

Furthermore, the petition argues that the blasphemy law has been used as the basis for discriminatory local regulations that have been used by local governments to discriminate against members of the Ahmadiyah community.

“The ambiguity of the norm in the article which was then translated into the SKB (the 2008 joint government decree on Ahmadiyah’s deviancy) and interpreted by the regional regulation makes the losses suffered by the applicants very specific and concrete,” Fitria told the Constitutional Court panel of judges as quoted by Tribun, noting that the SKB had been used to justify the sealing and even attacks on Ahmadiyah mosques.

Fitria also argued that the blasphemy law has created legal uncertainty for the Ahmadiyah community, depriving them of their rights to security and equal treatment before the law.

The petition asks that the Constitutional Court should amend Articles 1, 2, and 3 of the Blasphemy Law to make them conditional on the guarantee of the constitutional rights of the applicants.

Whether the traditionally conservative Constitutional Court will give serious consideration to the Ahmadiyah petitioners is yet to be seen, but we can hope.

The Ahmadiyah community is fighting back against government discrimination in other ways. In June, representatives of the group in West Java’s Kuningan regency filed a complaint against a local government requirement that they renounce their faith to obtain national ID cards, which are critical to accessing a range of government services.

And despite the persecution they have faced, the community continues to show their commitment to helping all the people in Indonesia, with 6,800 Ahmadiyah members signing up to donate their corneas to those in need, breaking an Indonesian record in July.

To read original post, please click HERE.

We are using cookies to give you the best experience. You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in privacy settings.
AcceptPrivacy Settings

GDPR

This Cookie Policy explains how Ahmadiyya Muslim Association UK (AMA UK)  Limited (“company”, “we”, “us”, and “ours”) use cookies and similar technologies to recognize you when you visit our websites, including without limitation www.ahmadiyyauk.org and its mobile or localized versions and related domains / sub-domains (“Websites”) and/or our mobile application (“App”). It explains what these technologies are and why we use them, as well as your rights to control our use of them.

What are cookies?

Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website or mobile application. Cookies are then sent back to the originating site on each subsequent visit, or to another site that recognizes that cookies. You can find out more information about cookies at www.allaboutcookies.org.

Cookies are widely used in order to make sites work or to work more efficiently.

We use cookies to enhance the online experience of our visitors (for example, by remembering your visits and/or page preferences) and to better understand how our site is used. Cookies may tell us, for example, whether you have visited our site before or whether you are a new visitor.

Cookies can remain on your computer or mobile device for different periods of time. Some cookies are ‘session cookies’, meaning that they exist only while your browser is open. These are deleted automatically once you close your browser. Other cookies are ‘permanent cookies,’ meaning that they survive after your browser is closed. They can be used by the site to recognize your computer or mobile device when you open your browser and browse the Internet again.

Why do we use cookies?

We use cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are required for technical reasons in order for our Websites and/or App to operate, and we refer to these as “essential” or “strictly necessary” cookies. Other cookies also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our Websites and/or App. Third parties serve cookies through our Websites and/or App for analytics and other purposes such as Google Analytics. In particular, we use forms related cookies which when you submit data through a form such as those found on contact pages or comment forms cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence.

How can you control cookies?

You have the right to choose whether or not to accept cookies and we have explained how you can exercise this right below. However, please note that if you do not accept our cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of our site.

You can set or amend your web browser controls to accept or refuse cookies. As the means by which you can refuse cookies through your web browser controls vary from browser-to-browser, you should visit your browser’s help menu for more information.

How often will we update this Cookie Policy?

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to the cookies we use or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons. Please, therefore, re-visit this Cookie Policy regularly to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies.