http://www.ThePersecution.org/ Religious Persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
Recommend UsEmail this PagePersecution News RSS feedeGazetteAlislam.org Blog
Introduction & Updates
<<… Indonesia >>
>> Papers & Analysis
Monthly Newsreports
Media Reports
Press Releases
Facts & Figures
Individual Case Reports
Pakistan and Ahmadis
Critical Analysis/Archives
Persecution - In Pictures
United Nations, HCHR
Amnesty International
H.R.C.P.
US States Department
USSD C.I.R.F
Urdu Section
Feedback/Site Tools
Related Links
Loading

Author: Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad
Description: This book is a brief introduction to the five fundamental articles of the Islamic faith. The articles of faith, which all Muslims believe in, are: Unity of God, Angels, Prophets, Holy Books and Life after Death. Throughout the book, the author emphasises the areas of similarities between Islam and other religions. He shows how religious teachings evolved through the ages culminating in the complete, perfect and universal teachings of Islam. (read it online)
US$3.00 [Order]
Author: Hadhrat Mirza Tahir Ahmadra, 4th Caliph of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community
Description: Murder in the name of Allah is a general review, with special emphasis on the subject of freedom of expression in Islam. This book is a reminder that purpose of any religion is the spread of peace, tolerance, and understanding. It urges that meaning of Islam - submission to the will of God - has been steadily corrupted by minority elements in the community. Instead of spreading peace, the religion has been abused by fanatics and made an excuse for violence and the spread of terror, both inside and outside the faith.
Regular price: US$12.99 | Sale price: US$9.99 [Order]

Home Worldwide Indonesia February, 2010 Who and what defines …
Who and what defines blasphemy?

Headlines
Thu, 02/11/2010 10:01 AM

Who and what defines blasphemy?

Arghea Desafti Hapsari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Religious leaders and experts testified Wednesday on what and who defines blasphemy, in the second hearing of a judicial review request of the 1965 Blasphemy Law.

Rev. Franz Magnis Suseno, a Catholic intellectual and professor, was the only expert witness from the petitioners’ side.

While blasphemy refers to “deviant teachings” in the law, Franz Magnis said it was “relative”.

“It means that one has gone from the right path to another that is not.

“Those who use this word are people who feel they are right.

“One group may find another group’s teaching as deviant, but the latter may also affirm it is the former’s teaching that is deviant,” he said.

Franz argued that the state should not have a say in determining whether a teaching was deviant.

“The state cannot say which is true between, for example, Catholics and the Jehovah Witnesses, even if the Catholics have a hundred more followers than the latter,” he said.

The government’s meddling in religious affairs was among issues raised by petitioners of the judicial review request, which comprise of several NGOs and promoters of pluralism.

In January, they requested the Constitutional Court review several articles that they said discriminate d against minority religious groups.

The articles, they said, regulate the government’s authority to dissolve religious groups whose beliefs and practices were deemed blasphemous by religious authorities.

Under the law, the government also has the authority to charge leaders and followers of suspected heretical groups with an article in the Criminal Code, which carries a maximum penalty of a five-year jail term.

Article 1 of the law stipulates that it is illegal to “intentionally publicize, recommend or organize public support for a different interpretation of a religion practiced in Indonesia or engage in a religious ritual resembling another’s religion”.

It also says that “practicing an interpretation of a religion that deviates from the core of that religion’s teachings” is illegal.

The chairman of the country’s largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama, Hasyim Muzadi, who came as the government’s expert witness, said the law did not violate freedom of religion, as petitioners feared.

“In fact, the minority [among religious communities] will be the ones who will suffer more if the law is revoked,” Hasyim said.

Revoking the law would likely lead to national instability, he said.

“Religious tolerance, which we have been building for a long time, will be disrupted,” he told the court.

Outside, hundreds of people from Muslim mass organizations staged a rally against the request for the judicial review.

Another testimony was from senior journalist Arswendo Atmowiloto, who spent four and a half years in jail after the Monitor tabloid, where he was editor-in-chief, released in 1990 results of a popularity poll that ranked Prophet Muhammad in 11th place, below himself.

“That’s in the past,” he said.

“But what is pertinent is the interpretation of ‘blasphemy’ in Indonesia.

“I did not know then that comparing Muhammad to other humans was blasphemous.”

Source:  
www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/02/11/who-and
-what-defines-blasphemy.html
Top of page