The Indonesian Constitutional Court quashed a rare legal effort to protect the rights of atheists and nonbelievers last month. The court ruled that a member may declare a belief, yet a minority one, on official documents, and that marriage must be in line with faith.
Indonesia, the nation’s largest Muslim-majority state, officially recognizes six sects: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. While members of minority faiths may experience bias, atheists and infidels are not even permitted to be.
In 2012, Alexander Aan, a civil servant, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for sacrilege after sharing agnostic content on Facebook.
Indonesia’s criminal script punishes sacrilege and the spread of secularism, although technically, it does not penalize the lack of religious perception itself.
Non-believers contend, however, that existing legislation are carefully enacted to prevent them from receiving equal protection under the law.
The Constitutional Court granted permission for people from minority religious organizations not one of the publicly recognized six to list themselves as non-specified “believers” on their identification cards in January 2024.
Campaigners hoped this would pave the way for the addition of a” no faith” solution.
But, that hope was shattered in October when two independent activists, Raymond Kamil and Teguh Sugiharto, repeatedly petitioned the Constitutional Court to grant non-believers the right to keep the faith field blank on standard documents.
Court breaks down non-believer complaint
Constitutional Court Justice Arief Hidayat ruled against the complaint last month, stating that religious conviction is” a need” under” Pancasila” and mandated by the law.
Pancasila is Indonesia’s establishment philosophy and entrenches belief in a single, highest deity. Justice Hidayat, a former chief justice, argued that requiring a spiritual revelation constituted a “proportional restraint” and was not subjective or harsh.
A second petition by Kamil and Sugiharto, in which it was claimed that a clause of the Relationship Law, which states that marriage can only be conducted in accordance with the laws of the important faith and belief, was biased, was also rejected by the Constitutional Court.
Justice Hidayat’s ruling, in accordance with local media, does not constitute unfair treatment because it allows Indian citizens to choose not to subscribe to a religion or belief in its marriages.
” The judge effectively ruled that there is’ no space’ for the freedom to become irreligious”, Ignatius Yordan Nugraha, a scholar at the Hertie School in Berlin wrote on Verfassungsblog, a Germany-based outlet about international legal matters.
How common is atheism in Indonesia?
Although secularism is greatly stigmatized, research suggests that non-belief is not uncommon in Indonesia.
In a population of more than 270 million, according to a study by scientific Hanung Sito Rohmawati, about 3.5 million Indonesians are skeptics. The actual number is unfamiliar since some non-believers conceal their lack of faith to avoid discrimination, intimidation, or trial, activists say.
Andreas Harsono, a researcher for Human Rights Watch ( HRW), told DW that he was not surprised by the Constitutional Court’s ruling.
According to Harsono,” the nine judges at the court are not immune from Islamic fundamentalism,” Indonesia has seen a rise in Islamic fundamentalism since the authoritarian President Suharto’s rule was overthrown in 1998.
The Constitutional Court emphasized” the principle of all-one divinity as the main principle” of the law in a 2010 decision that upheld laws that criminalize blasphemy, stating that religiosity serves as a “metric tool” to determine whether constitutional law is constitutional or not.
Rights of non-believers mostly go unnoticed
The Constitutional Court’s ruling against non-belief has drawn little international attention.
In recent years, the rights of minority faiths in Southeast Asia have become a contentious issue, particularly since Myanmar’s military attempted to massacre the Muslim-minority Rohingya population in 2016.
The US government and the German Parliament have been particularly vocal in their criticism of the governments of Laos and Vietnam for suppressing religious minorities.
Agnostics and atheists claim little international support for them.
A report from NGO Humanists International,” Humanists At Risk: Action Report 2020″, documented “lack of separation between state and religion, as well as an array of tactics used against humanists, atheists and non-religious people” in several Southeast Asian states, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
During his widely acclaimed trip to Indonesia in September, Pope Francis did not speak out against non-believers.
A spokesperson for the European Union ( EU) told DW to not specifically disagree with the court’s decision.
” The EU promotes and supports the right of all individuals to have a religion, to hold a belief, or not to believe, as well as the right to manifest and to change or leave one’s religion or belief without fear of violence, persecution, or discrimination”, the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson continued,” We frequently discuss the need to guarantee the freedom of religion or belief, including the right not to believe,” in appropriate forums like the EU-Indonesia Human Rights Dialogue, which held its most recent session in July.
Despite the legal setbacks, Harsono from HRW believes that progress is still achievable.
” It’s possible to challenge the ruling”, he said, referring to the latest Constitutional Court decision, although he admitted that it may take time.
He remarked that” we need to educate people to understand the Indonesian principle of religious freedom and belief.”
However, scholar Nugraha claims that Hidayat’s ruling from last month “opens the door to more constitutional petitions challenging laws that disobey fundamental beliefs.”
