The governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as \u2018Ahok\u2019, has been found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to two years in prison. He will appeal the sentence.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Benedict Rogers, East Asia Team Leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) said: “This verdict and the sentence imposed represent an outrageous miscarriage of justice. It also represents a further, and severe, erosion of Indonesia’s values of religious pluralism as set out in the Pancasila, the state ideology.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIndonesia’s ability to hold itself up as an example of a moderate, tolerant, Muslim-majority democracy is further threatened and is now very questionable. We urge the courts to overturn this verdict on appeal and acquit Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a Chinese Christian, Ahok is Indonesia\u2019s most prominent ethnic minority politician and was the first non-Muslim governor of Jakarta for over 50 years. His campaign for re-election was overshadowed by the blasphemy allegation against him and he lost the vote last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 27 September 2016, Ahok reportedly quoted a Qur\u2019anic verse on the campaign trail while addressing concerns that his political opponents may use the verse to discourage people from voting for him as a non-Muslim. He was then falsely accused of criticising the verse itself. The court case against the governor was filed by several conservative Islamic groups after his statement went viral via a doctored YouTube video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 13 November 2016, Ahok was formally charged with blasphemy and his trial began on 13 December 2016. An estimated 500,000 Muslims turned up to a number of rallies in November and December 2016 to protest against his supposed blasphemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indonesia is the world\u2019s largest Muslim-majority country, yet it rejected theocracy at its foundation and adopted a state philosophy known as \u2018Pancasila\u2019, giving equal recognition to the major religions. CSW believes that the case against Ahok is part of a broader attempt to undermine the right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 10 January, the Indonesian National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) published a report<\/a> detailing a steady increase in FoRB violations in recent years. CSW\u2019s 2014 report, Indonesia: Pluralism in Peril<\/a><\/i>, also found that rising religious intolerance poses a threat to Indonesia\u2019s strong tradition of religious pluralism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benedict Rogers added: \u201cIndonesia’s blasphemy laws have been abused for too long, so we call on President Joko Widodo to review the blasphemy laws and amend or repeal them to prevent future injustices.”<\/i><\/b><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok, has been found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to two years in prison. He will appeal the sentence.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":42926,"template":"","categories":[],"regions":[128,132],"class_list":["post-28786","press","type-press","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","regions-east-asia","regions-indonesia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/28786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/28786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39372,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/28786\/revisions\/39372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28786"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=28786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}