Mr. Basuki, 51, who is ethnic Chinese and popularly known as Ahok, was the incumbent governor and was handily leading in opinion polls over Mr. Anies and other candidates when he was accused of violating a blasphemy law by citing a verse from the Quran in a speech in September 2016 to argue that it was acceptable for Muslims to vote for a non-Muslim candidate.So it's blasphemy for a non-Muslim to cite the Koran as an authority? Imagine if he'd cited the Bible.
Hard-line Islamic groups held large street protests — one of which turned violent — demanding that he be jailed or summarily executed.... He was convicted by the North Jakarta District Court on May 9, three weeks after being defeated in a runoff by Mr. Anies, who is Muslim.
While Mr. Anies was not publicly accused of orchestrating the street protests against Mr. Basuki by Islamic radicals, he did openly court their support and flaunted his own Muslim credentials in campaign advertising.
It is Blasphemy to Vote for My Opponent
Indonesia does democracy a little differently.
It needed to be cited in the Arabic, and treated as holy. Doesn't mean non believers can't touch it, just means that it is easy to accuse without being able to disprove it.
ReplyDeleteIf he had quoted it in non Arabic, that would be anti Islam.
If he had done something else questionable to a Koran, he can be nailed with it.
This isn't INdo law, but more like Islamic law. So Indo law would provide even more gyrations.
Relying on the NYTimes to spot the cultural differences and details, is like expecting the West to understand Japan by using Leftist translations of Japanese.
ReplyDelete