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Aisyah Llewellyn

Indonesia’s blasphemy law has once again come under scrutiny after former vice-president Jusuf Kalla was reported to police over remarks linking past Muslim-Christian conflicts to beliefs about martyrdom.
The case is unusual because it involves Christian complainants against one of the most senior Muslim figures in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation and reflects what critics have long called the law’s central flaw: its susceptibility to politicised use.
Kalla, a career politician who no longer holds public office, was reported by several Christian and Catholic youth groups in mid-April over comments made during a public lecture at Indonesia’s Gajah Mada University last month.
As part of the address to university students, Kalla referenced historic sectarian conflict in Indonesia, including in Poso in Central Sulawesi and Ambon in the Malukus, two sites associated with deadly Muslim-Christian violence.
“Why do religions easily become a reason for conflict, like in Poso and Ambon? Because both Muslims and Christians believe that killing or being killed can be considered martyrdom,” he said.
The Poso clashes involving Muslim and Christian religious groups lasted from 1998 to 2001 and reportedly left more than 1,000 people dead. The religious riots in the Malukus from 1999 to 2002 caused at least 5,000 deaths.
“During conflict, both sides hold that belief. If I kill a Muslim, I become a martyr. If I die, I also become a martyr. That makes it difficult to stop,” Kalla said, with footage of the speech going viral on Indonesian social media.

In a statement regarding the Kalla case, one of the complainants, the Indonesian Youth Christian Movement said that his comments had “hurt our Christian community and caused public commotion”.
The Catholic Youth’s central board, which also filed a police complaint, called Kalla’s remarks incompatible with Christian and Catholic teachings, saying that these never justified violence of any kind.
“Misinterpreting or oversimplifying religious teachings can lead not only to misunderstanding but also to a breakdown of trust and social harmony,” the board said.
Addressing the police complaints in a press conference last week, Kalla maintained that his comments had been taken out of context.
“I was not speaking about religious doctrine. I was describing the reality of what actually happened at that time … about why [Muslims and Christians] could end up killing each other … despite being neighbours,” Kalla said.
Kalla accused the groups that reported him of defamation and said he would explore potential legal recourse to clear his name.
Indonesia’s blasphemy law contains provisions for criminal offences against religion, including public acts, incitement, and provocation towards or defamation of a religion or belief, and carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.

‘Toxic law’
While many of Indonesia’s most prominent blasphemy cases have involved complaints by Muslim groups, the Kalla incident shows how religious offence provisions can be invoked across communal lines – including against establishment figures.
Andreas Harsono, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “President Prabowo [Subianto] should issue a statement asking all law enforcement agencies to stop using this toxic law. Not only against Jusuf Kalla, but everyone.”
He added: “It is toxic because it seems to be a panacea. It seems to be needed to prevent people from defaming religions including Islam in Indonesia. But it is poisonous as it could be used as a political weapon, discriminating against religious minorities, dividing believers between ‘recognised religions’ and others, silencing critics and so on.”
Indonesia, which has a population of 287 million people, is the most populous Muslim nation on earth, with around 87 per cent of residents following Islam. The country has long officially recognised six religions, including Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism.
According to Amnesty International, it monitored 22 reported blasphemy cases in 2025 involving several religious communities.
Amnesty said it had monitored two cases so far this year, including Kalla and that of Indonesian comedian Pandji Pragiwaksono.
Pragiwaksono was reported to the police in January by two Muslim youth groups, the Nahdlatul Ulama Youth Force and the Muhammadiyah Youth Alliance, following comments he made in his comedy special, Mens Rea, which aired on Netflix.
The groups accused him of blasphemy and public incitement after he allegedly criticised Muslim organisations and their alleged involvement in receiving mining concessions if they supported certain politicians in Indonesia’s elections.
Following questioning by the police, Pragiwaksono reportedly apologised for his comments to the offended parties.

Political weapon or religious offence?
Asked whether Indonesia’s blasphemy law functioned more as a political weapon than a means to deal with genuine religious offences, Amnesty Indonesia director Usman Hamid described it as “a combination of both”, saying it “depended largely on who was being reported”.
“In the case of Pandji, the report clearly stemmed from Pandji’s track record of criticism of the government. Therefore, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the blasphemy law was used to target him. The same is true in the case of the report filed against Kalla, which occurred at a time of tension between political actors in Indonesia.”
He added, however, that many of the cases documented by Amnesty International stemmed from what appeared to be real public offences over comments deemed insulting to religion or culture.
In recent years, there have been several high-profile blasphemy cases, including that involving transgender influencer Ratu Entok, also known as Ratu Thailsa, and Chinese-Indonesian Meliana.
Entok was sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison in 2025, after she made comments in a social media live stream during which she brandished a photograph of Jesus and said that he should cut his hair.
Meliana, a Buddhist, was also sentenced to two years in prison in 2018 after she was found guilty of blasphemy for stating that her local mosque’s speakers were too loud and demanding that they be turned down. Meliana denied making any such comments.


From blasphemy to hate speech
Experts say there may be some relief in how blasphemy complaints are dealt with in Indonesia after the roll-out of Indonesia’s new criminal code in January this year, which replaced the previous code.
Indonesian legal expert Abdul Fickar Hadjar said that the new code downgraded the crime of “blasphemy” and re-categorised it as “crimes related to religious insult” and “incitement to non-religion”.
“This change aims to shift the paradigm from blasphemy to hate speech,” he said.
“The new criminal code claims to better guarantee freedom of religion and belief, and limit the arbitrary application of articles that often target minority groups. Overall, this criminal law reform seeks to balance protection of religion and freedom of expression,” he said.
Speaking on the Kalla case, Hadjar said that he thought it had been “exaggerated”.
“It is clear that what Kalla said was in a discussion forum, especially as it was carried out on campus, and it is clearly not a crime. The police should dismiss the report.”
However, Amnesty’s Hamid said that, despite the changes to the blasphemy law, it continued to “violate Indonesia’s international obligations to respect and protect the right to freedom of expression”.
He added that this was in line with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a 1966 UN human rights treaty, which does not permit restrictions on the right to freedom of expression for the purpose of guaranteeing respect for religion or protecting it from defamation.
While the covenant protects the rights of individuals and, in some cases, groups of people, it does not cover entities such as religions, beliefs, ideas or symbols, according to Hamid.
“Amnesty International considers all those detained or imprisoned solely because of their religious views or beliefs, or for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, to be prisoners of conscience.”


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Is Indonesia’s blasphemy law for religious protection or political purpose?

A crowd watched a burning shopping centre in Ambon in 1999 amid clashes between Christians and Muslims that had killed hundreds in the Indonesian city that year. Photo: Reuters

Then Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla stands next to then president Joko Widodo at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta on August 17, 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE

Christian gang members pray before their trial in Jakarta in 2007 over the killing of two Muslim fish traders in Poso, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Photo: AFP

A protest by Muslims against the construction of a Catholic church in Bekasi, Indonesia, in 2017. Photo: AP

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The law has come under the spotlight after complaints filed against a former vice-president over his comments on sectarian violence


The law has come under the spotlight after complaints filed against a former vice-president over his comments on sectarian violence.


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Is Indonesia’s blasphemy law for religious protection or political purpose?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The law has come under the spotlight after complaints filed against a former vice-president over his comments on sectarian violence

The law has come under the spotlight after complaints filed against a former vice-president over his comments on sectarian violence