Wednesday, February 13, 2013

From the Guardian

Indonesia's atheists face battle for religious freedom
When Alex Aan picked up a copy of Karen Armstrong's Holy War from his local library in west Sumatra in 2005, he had little inkling of his own religious battle to come. But after posting "God doesn't exist" on Facebook, the soft-spoken civil servant, 30, faces up to 11 years in jail for what is considered blasphemy in Indonesia.

Sometimes when you read the news, you don't know whether to laugh or cry.  I almost have to resist the urge to laugh when I think that someone right now is rotting away in an Indonesian jail for writing "God doesn't exist" on facebook.
(This is another old link--I first read this article about a year ago, but I was given cause to remember it recently when a co-worker told me about his experience teaching in Indonesia.  He said he went into foreigner registration, and was told he had to register his religion, and when he asked about registering as an atheist, he was told that he couldn't be an atheist in Indonesia, and that he should just tick the box marked Christian like all the other foreigners.  On the plus side, he said that the police man on doing the registration was very friendly, and even gave him some popcorn once he had agreed to tick the Christian box.)

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