Indonesian Buddhist woman imprisoned after complaining mosque is too loud
An Indonesian Buddhist woman has been jailed for complaining that her neighbourhood mosque was too loud.
Key points:
- Woman receives 18 month sentence for complaining about mosque noise
- In response mobs burnt down 14 Buddhist temples during riots
- Conservative Muslims are said to have become less tolerant of minorities recently
The ethnic Chinese woman known as Meiliana was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being found guilty of insulting Islam under Indonesia's blasphemy laws.
Prosecutors said the 44-year-old defendant violated the criminal code by committing blasphemy against the religion.
Meiliana complained to a member of the public that the volume was too loud near her house in North Sumatra in 2016.
There are hundreds of thousands of mosques across the vast archipelago and most use loudspeakers to play the "azan" or call to prayer, which lasts a few minutes. But many also play lengthy versions of prayers or sermons lasting over 30 minutes, which has been deemed unnecessary by the Indonesian Mosque Council.
The Muslim call to prayer is repeated five times a day.
Following media reports of Meiliana's comments, mobs burned and ransacked at least fourteen Buddhist temples throughout the port town Medan in 2016.
"She said something that insulted religion — in this case Islam," Jamaluddin, a spokesman for the Medan district court, said.
He added that the defendant had also showed remorse and apologised.
Rising tide of Islamisation, warn critics
Political activists have warned the country's stringent blasphemy laws have been used to bully minorities and violate religious freedoms.
Bonar Tigor Naipospos, deputy chair of SETARA Institute, an Indonesian-based democracy organisation, said in the case of Meiliana she had been used as a scapegoat because of political pressure.
"What Meiliana did could not be categorised as blasphemy," he said.
He also said the Indonesian government needed to revise the laws, or there would be similar cases in the future.
"That's why we always insist the government to revise the article and set a clearer definition of what religious blasphemy really means."
Indonesia has the world's largest population of Muslims with a sizeable Buddhist and Christian minority.
Recent years have seen a rise in conservative and hard-line interpretations of Islam, prompting fears the secular nation's long-standing reputation for tolerance and diversity was being eroded.
Late last week, a kindergarten in Indonesia's East Java province came under fire for dressing children in niqabs and having them carry fake assault rifles for a local Independence Day parade. Over the weekend, a fatwa was issued declaring that the measles vaccine was haram.
Last year, the former ethnic Chinese governor of Jakarta, was tried and jailed for blasphemy
Several Muslim groups accused him of insulting Islam when he said his political rivals were using the Koran to deceive voters.
The ruling was widely condemned and believed to be politically motivated.
Meiliana's lawyer, Ranto Sibarani, said her sentence would be appealed.
The maximum sentence for blasphemy is five years.