Indonesian group slams blasphemy sentence

Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation has criticised the blasphemy conviction and imprisonment of a Buddhist woman who complained that the call to prayer from her neighbourhood mosque was too loud.

Officials from Nahdlatul Ulama which claims 60 million members, said yesterday that her complaint about mosque loudspeakers doesn’t constitute blasphemy under Indonesian law.

The ethnic Chinese woman, Meiliana, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Tuesday by a court in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province, adding new fuel to concerns that an intolerant brand of Islam is gaining ground in Indonesia. A conservative Muslim group in the province said the sentence was too light.

The country’s constitution guarantees freedom of speech and religion, but religious minorities are frequently the target of blasphemy prosecutions that can result in a maximum of five years in prison.

The overwhelming of cases end guilty verdicts.

Word of the woman’s original comments in July 2016 sparked a riot in Tanjung Balai, a port town on Sumatra. Mobs burnt and ransacked at least 14 Buddhist temples in the town.

“We believe that Meiliana did not commit blasphemy,” Robikin Emhas, a deputy chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, told AP. He said a complaint about the volume of the five-timesa-day call to prayer does not contain any element of hatred against a religion. “I regret this matter has been brought to the court, it actually should be settled in a peaceful way,” Emhas said.

Prosecutors had accused the 44-year-old defendant of violating the criminal code by committing blasphemy against Islam. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation. majority with