Islam, Blasphemy, and Human Rights in Indonesia

The Trial of Ahok

Daniel Peterson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000765021
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Human Rights
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Using the high-profile 2017 blasphemy trial of the former governor of Jakarta, Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama, as its sole case study, this book assesses whether Indonesia's liberal democratic human rights legal regime can withstand the rise of growing Islamist majoritarian sentiment.

Specifically, this book analyses whether a 2010 decision of Indonesia's Constitutional Court has rendered the liberal democratic human rights guarantees contained in Indonesia's 1945 Constitution ineffective. Key legal documents, including the indictment issued by the North Jakarta Attorney-General and General Prosecutor, the defence's 'Notice of Defence', and the North Jakarta State Court's convicting judgment, are examined. The book shows how Islamist majoritarians in Indonesia have hijacked human rights discourse by attributing new, inaccurate meanings to key liberal democratic concepts. This has provided them with a human rights law-based justification for the prioritisation of the religious sensibilities and religious orthodoxy of Indonesia's Muslim majority over the fundamental rights of the country's religious minorities. While Ahok's conviction evidences this, the book cautions that matters pertaining to public religion will remain a site of contestation in contemporary Indonesia for the foreseeable future.

A groundbreaking study of the Ahok trial, the blasphemy law, and the contentious politics of religious freedom and cultural citizenship in Indonesia, this book will be of interest to academics working in the fields of religion, Islamic studies, religious studies, law and society, law and development, law reform, constitutionalism, politics, history and social change, and Southeast Asian studies.

1
Ahok and blasphemy – an introduction

Ahok

On 9 May 2017, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, commonly known as ‘Ahok’, was convicted of blaspheming Islam and the Qur’an and sentenced to two years’ jail. As Governor of the Special Capital Region of Jakarta, as he was at the time of his conviction, Ahok became Indonesia’s first public official to be convicted of blasphemy.¹ As an ethnic Chinese Christian, Ahok is a ‘double minority’ in Indonesia.² He was also Jakarta’s first ethnic Chinese governor and only its second non-Muslim governor,³ having been elevated from deputy governor to governor on 19 November 2014 after his predecessor and political ally, Joko Widodo (‘Jokowi’), was sworn in as president. On 19 April 2017, while still on trial, Ahok lost the gubernatorial run-off election to Anies Baswedan.⁴ While Ahok’s gubernatorial tenure was scheduled to conclude in October of that year, his conviction on 9 May brought it to a premature end.

The basis for Ahok’s conviction dates back to 27 September 2016. While on an official visit to the Thousand Islands district (Kepulauan Seribu), off the coast of Jakarta, to discuss his government’s fisheries program with the people of Pramuka Island, Ahok made reference to the Qur’anic verse Surah Al-Ma’ida 51 – specifically the fact that politicians had used the verse to discourage Muslims from electing him because of his Christian faith. On 6 October 2016, a 30-second video excerpt of Ahok’s remarks was uploaded to Facebook by Buni Yani, a former lecturer at the London School of Public Relations Jakarta⁵ and an outspoken detractor of Ahok’s. Buni Yani entitled the video ‘Defamation of Religion?’ (Penistaan terhadap Agama?) and attached an edited transcript of Ahok’s remarks.⁶ The transcript, crucially, omitted the word ‘use’ (pakai), making it seem to some that Ahok was suggesting that Muslims could be misled by the Qur’an itself.⁷ Indeed, Ahok would later claim that this omission subverted the meaning of his remarks,⁸ while one of Ahok’s chief legal counsel, Humphrey Djemat, described the omission as being ‘fatal’ to his client’s prospects of a fair trial.⁹ In any case, the video was seized upon by certain members of Indonesia’s radical Islamist fringe, some of whom submitted it as part of their reports to the police alleging that Ahok had, contrary to Law No. 1/PNPS/1965 on the Prevention of the Abuse/Sullying of Religion, blasphemed the Qur’an and Islam. From hereon, I refer to this statute simply as ‘the Blasphemy Law.’

Prior to the video’s online dissemination, it appeared that Ahok would win Jakarta’s February 2017 gubernatorial election comfortably.¹⁰ Such was his popularity that the controversial policies of his administration, which included the mass eviction of urban poor communities and an extensive reclamation project in North Jakarta, appeared incapable of harming his prospects at the polls.¹¹ Indeed, as Charles Honoris, treasurer for Ahok’s campaign team, explained, most credible survey agencies had reported that public satisfaction with Ahok as governor, at least prior to the incident on Pramuka Island, was between 65 and 70 per cent. This was, in part, due to Ahok’s connection to President Jokowi.¹²

Jokowi and Ahok still had their political opponents and detractors, many of whom occupied the radical Islamist fringe and persistently sought to impugn Ahok’s electability on the basis of his double minority status. Prior to the incident on Pramuka Island, however, Ahok’s consistently strong performance as governor had left the electorate largely unfazed by his Chinese ethnicity and Christian faith.¹³ Guntur Romli, who was a staffer of Ahok’s deputy governor H. Djarot Hidayat, explained that once Ahok made reference to Surah Al-Ma’ida 51, however, the reaction of Ahok’s opponents and detractors was one of: ‘Wow! We’ve got him!’ (Wah! Dapet nih!).¹⁴ Once renowned for his preference for ‘blusukan’, that is, taking to the streets to meet with his constituents face to face, it was now no longer safe for anyone in Ahok’s team to take their re-election campaign to the streets. Indeed, Ahok himself now only campaigned in public on occasion, never publicising his plans to do so lest he and his team be blockaded by the ever-growing angry mob crying foul over his remarks. As Guntur explained, ‘it was like we were boxing, but our hands and feet were tied.’¹⁵

Eight or nine years earlier, Ahok’s detractors were either unaware or unperturbed by his opposition to the use of Surah Al-Ma’ida 51 for political purposes. Indeed, in 2007, while campaigning for the governorship of his home province of Bangka Belitung, Ahok spoke openly about the verse and its irrelevance to political elections. Ahok even enjoyed the moral support of the late Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesia’s fourth president, a former leader of the world’s largest Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama (the Awakening of the Ulama), and a renowned scholar of Islam himself. On one occasion, which can still be viewed on YouTube, Wahid attended a political rally in Bangka Belitung in support of Ahok’s campaign. Flanked by Ahok and others, Wahid implored the crowd to vote for Ahok and to disregard those who use Surah Al-Ma’ida 51 to discourage Muslims from voting for Christian and Jewish candidates. Wahid told the crowd that Ahok was a fine gubernatorial candidate, having already proven himself as Regent (Bupati)¹⁶ of East Belitung. Wahid also emphasised that Surah Al-Ma’ida 51 is irrelevant for the purposes of political elections. Ahok then offered his gratitude to Wahid for attending the rally, before himself denouncing those members of the political establishment who had resorted to mobilising issues of race and identity politics for their own political ends.¹⁷ Notwithstanding its content, this particular YouTube video has never, to my knowledge, been impugned by Ahok’s detractors.

In many ways, Ahok was more demonstrative and outspoken in 2007 about the use of Surah Al-Ma’ida 51 than he was on Pramuka Island in 2016. While the circumstances in which he lost that 2007 election were controversial,¹⁸ his remarks failed to generate the apparent moral panic they did in 2016.¹⁹ In 2008, Ahok released his autobiography, Merubah Indonesia: The Story of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama.²⁰ In it he explains how some of his detractors, whom he does not mention by name, had used Surah Al-Ma’ida 51 to discourage Muslims from electing him because of his Christian faith.²¹ Notwithstanding its best-seller status, the publication of Ahok’s autobiography also failed to generate the same furore as his remarks in September 2016. As Ahok explained in a television interview in January 2017 with Al Jazeera, he believed that he had only been charged with blasphemy on this occasion because certain elements of society saw this as an opportunity to remove the ethnic-Chinese Christian governor from public office.²²

The late Arswendo Atmowiloto agreed with that sentiment. As one of the nine people to be prosecuted pursuant to the Blasphemy Law under Soeharto’s New Order (1967–1998),²³ when the Blasphemy Law was only rarely used, Arswendo believed that the lack of reaction to Wahid’s support for Ahok in 2007, as well as his declaration that Surah Al-Ma’ida 51 has no connection to political elections, revealed the extent to which the political landscape in Indonesia had changed by 2016.²⁴ Indeed, the swiftness with which Ahok was indicted and convicted was an accurate reflection of the moral panic and furore, contrived or otherwise, that ensued after Buni Yani uploaded the video excerpt to his Facebook page.

On 11 October 2016, just five days after Buni Yani’s Facebook post, Indonesia’s Council of Ulama, the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), issued a ‘Religious Opinion and Stance’ (Pendapat dan Sikap Keagamaan) declaring Ahok’s remarks to be ‘haram’ (forbidden). The issuance of the edict was significant. As Indonesia’s peak Islamic body, MUI sees itself as the ‘khadim al-ummah’ (servant of the Muslim people).²⁵ Furthermore, as Syafiq Hasyim explained, MUI, under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–2014), became ‘a point of reference for society’ (rujukan masyarakat) to the extent that it assumed the unofficial role of ‘moral and aqidah (creed) police’ (polisi moral dan polisi aqidah).²⁶ An MUI-issued edict, therefore, is typically seen by supposedly aggrieved protestors as granting them carte blanche to demonstrate in response to the allegedly blasphemous conduct that forms the basis of that edict. The police will also typically delay opening a criminal investigation into allegations of blasphemy until MUI has issued an edict impugning the conduct at the centre of the complaints.²⁷

Ahok’s case was no exception to this pattern. Indeed, MUI’s Religious Opinion and Stance triggered several mass demonstrations, two of which were conducted on a scale heretofore unseen in Indonesia. On 4 November 2016, anywhere between 150,000 and 250,000 people mobilised in front of the presidential palace (Istana Negara). Under the moniker ‘Aksi Bela Islam’ (Action to Defend Islam), they demanded Ahok’s conviction. Before long, some groups in the crowd turned violent, compelling t...