TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Anti-Religious Blasphemy Alliance filed a police report against Megawati Soekarnoputri, chairperson of the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle for allegedly defaming religion.

Anti-Religious Blasphemy Alliance spokesperson Baharuzaman claimed that the alleged blasphemous words uttered by Megawati were: “Leaders who adopt a narrow-minded ideology position themselves as the messenger of a self-fulfilling prophecy, or prophets. They eloquently predict what would happen in the future, including life after the mortal world, where they haven’t even witnessed it themselves.”

The report was filed with the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Corps (Bareskrim) on Monday, January 23, 2017. “The report was filed yesterday. It refers to the speech delivered by Bu Mega at PDI-P’s 44^th anniversary aired on television. The person who filed the report is the Anti-Religious Blasphemy Movement’s spokesperson,” National Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Rikwanto at the National Police Headquarter in Jakarta on Tuesday, January 24, 2017.

Megawati could face charges for committing an act of blasphemy regulated under Article 156 or 156a of the Criminal code.

Baharuzaman argued that Megawati’s speech contained religious blasphemy.

“After watching the speech on television, [Baharuzaman] then downloaded the video of the speech from YouTube and saved on a CD,” Rikwanto explained.

Bareskrim Investigators will process the report as they have done with other reports. “It will be processed as usual,” Rikwanto said.

ANTARA