By Farouk Peru on 5/6/2010 7:40 AM

Indonesia took a regressive step from democracy this week with the implementation of it’s new blasphemy laws. I always looked to Indonesia as the better example of religious democracy in South East Asia. It was certainly miles ahead of Malaysia in terms of religious freedom. According to this news however, Indonesia will now uphold the ‘1965 law, which allows for criminal penalties and bans on people or groups that “distort” the central tenets of six officially recognized religions, was in line with the constitution and was vital to religious harmony.

This law , in my opinion, is a mockery of the religious freedom promised by Indonesia and worse still, an obstacle against the process of democratisation in the country. What is worse however is the logic involved in formulating such a law which utterly obfuscates the processual nature of religion itself.

Minister of Religious...

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By Farouk Peru on 11/25/2008 1:24 PM

Did you know that the Hadith was compiled two hundred years after the death of the Prophet? While there are claims about ’Hadith leaflets’ before that, they are admittedly non-existent. While Quran was compiled during the time of the Prophet himself - we know this because Quran tells us - the Hadith literature was never subjected to such a treatment. I wonder why.

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