1st Edition
Law and Politics of Blasphemy in Indonesia The Sacred, the State and the Ballot Box
I. Law, religion and the illiberal state
1. Introduction: Law and religion in Indonesian democracy
2. Blasphemy and illiberal legal order
II. The vicious cycle of blasphemy
3. Inventing the offence: A historical overview
4. Religion at the ballot box
5. Guidance to guilty
6. The route to religious mobilisation
III. The pursuit of freedom of religion or belief
7. Activism for freedom of religion or belief
8. Conclusion
Biography
Rafiqa Qurrata A’yun is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, Universitas Indonesia, and an Associate at Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS), Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne.
“Few developments have raised concerns about the state of democracy in Indonesia as has the rise of blasphemy prosecutions. In this richly detailed and theoretically insightful book, Rafiqa Qurrata A’yun examines the origins and persistence of blasphemy prosecutions in democratic Indonesia. She provides a masterful overview of the political and institutional background to the “invention” of blasphemy as a legal offence. She provides a no less incisive analysis of the uses and abuses of blasphemy allegations in Islamist electoral campaigns and mobilisations. Her study provides troubling and important insights into the challenge of religious freedom and activism in contemporary Indonesia. The result is a book that deserves to be read by all students of Islam and politics in Indonesia and the broader world.”
-- Robert W. Hefner, Professor of Global Affairs, Boston University and President of the American Institute for Indonesian Studies, USA.
“This book challenges the way that we think about law, especially pertaining to the way it regulates religious practices. Tackling the issue of blasphemy laws in post-authoritarian Indonesia, it shows that their persistence is more directly the product of an illiberal legal order linked to a highly illiberal form of democracy, rather than about prevailing cultural sensibilities. In this broader socio-political context, blasphemy laws can be instrumentalised when religious cultural references are effectively harnessed to intra-elite conflicts. Rather than about values, laws are therefore about power, and this book shows that blasphemy laws are no exception.”
-- Vedi R. Hadiz, Professor of Asian Studies and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia.
