TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - People’s Consultative Assembly speaker Hidayat Nur Wahid expressed his disagreement with the idea to remove Article 156a of the Criminal Code regarding blasphemy.
Hidayat argues that the removal of the article could spark religious intolerance. He added that Indonesia went through a hard time because of the now-defunct Indonesia Communist Party (PKI), which rejected the concept of religion and God. He views that removing the article means supporting the PKI being reborn.
Read: MPR Deputy Speaker Rejects Calls for Scrapping of Blasphemy Law
“This will provide an opportunity for the PKI to return. That’s why we need to reject the plan to remove the article,” Hidayat said on Thursday, May 11, 2017.
According to him, Indonesia does not embrace communism or atheism, but it is a country that believes in God and a country of religions. The state ideology, Pancasila or the five principles, acknowledges God as stated in the first principle.
“So, Indonesia is not an anti-religion or anti-god country that tolerates religious blasphemy. It respects religions and the divine,” Hidayat added.
LARISSA HUDA
