Jakarta cathedral, 1980. Wikimedia Commons

 

By Usman Hamid

The Jakarta Post-Sept 7

When first president Sukarno was under pressure from Muslim groups in 1965, he complied with their calls by issuing a law for the prevention of “religious abuse and/or defamation” to “protect” official religions from mystical indigenous faiths.  At that time the law was used to protect Indonesia’s official religions of Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Confucianism and Buddhism. It was aimed at followers of indigenous faiths who were considered to have blasphemed against official beliefs.

Read more at: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/09/07/blasphemy-law-takes-toll-minority-faiths-ethnicity.html

First published in: The Jakarta Post