A rare legal effort to secure rights for atheists and nonbelievers was quashed last month by Indonesia’s Constitutional Court, which ruled that a citizen must profess a faith, even a minority one, on official documents, and that marriage must conform to religion.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, officially recognizes six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. While adherents of minority faiths can face discrimination, atheists and nonbelievers are not even recognized under the law.
In 2012, Alexander Aan, a civil servant, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for blasphemy after sharing atheist content on Facebook.
Indonesia’s criminal code punishes blasphemy and the spread of atheism, although technically, it does not criminalize the absence of religious belief itself.
However, non-believers argue that existing laws are selectively enforced to deny them equal protection under the law.
In January 2024, the Constitutional Court allowed individuals from minority religious groups not among the officially recognized six to register as non-specified “believers” on their identity cards.
Campaigners hoped this would pave the way for the inclusion of a “no religion” option.
However, that hope was dashed after two agnostic activists, Raymond Kamil and Teguh Sugiharto, unsuccessfully petitioned the Constitutional Court in October to allow non-believers the right to leave the religion field blank on official documents.
Court shuts down non-believer petition
Constitutional Court Justice Arief Hidayat ruled against the petition last month, stating that religious belief is “a necessity” under “Pancasila” and mandated by the constitution.
Pancasila is Indonesia’s founding ideology and enshrines belief in a single, supreme deity. Justice Hidayat, a former chief justice, argued that requiring a religious confession constituted a “proportional restriction” and was not arbitrary or oppressive.
The Constitutional Court also slapped down another petition filed by Kamil and Sugiharto which argued that a provision of the Marriage Law, which stipulates that a marriage is valid only if conducted according to the laws of the relevant religion and belief, was discriminatory.
According to local media, Justice Hidayat said in his ruling that the “absence of provisions for Indonesian citizens to choose not to adhere to a religion or belief,” validating marriages according to individual religion or belief “does not constitute discriminatory treatment.”
“The court essentially ruled that there is ‘no room’ for the freedom to be irreligious,” Ignatius Yordan Nugraha, a scholar at the Hertie School in Berlin wrote on Verfassungsblog, a Germany-based outlet about international constitutional matters.
How common is atheism in Indonesia?
Although atheism is heavily stigmatized, research suggests that non-belief is not uncommon in Indonesia.
A study by academic Hanung Sito Rohmawati estimated that around 3.5 million Indonesians are atheists in a population of more than 270 million. The real number is unknown since many non-believers conceal their lack of faith to avoid discrimination, harassment, or prosecution, activists say.
Andreas Harsono, a researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told DW that he was not surprised by the Constitutional Court’s ruling.
Indonesia has seen a rise in Islamic fundamentalism since the fall of authoritarian President Suharto in 1998, and “the nine judges at the court are not immune from Islamic fundamentalism,” Harsono said.
In a 2010 ruling that upheld laws that criminalize blasphemy, the Constitutional Court stressed “the principle of all-one divinity as the main principle” of the law, meaning that religiosity is “a yardstick … to determine constitutional or unconstitutional law.”
Rights of non-believers mostly go unnoticed
The Constitutional Court’s ruling against non-belief has drawn little international attention.
The rights of minority faiths in Southeast Asia have become a hotly contested issue in recent years, particularly since Myanmar’s military began its attempted genocide of the Muslim-minority Rohingya population in 2016.
The US government and the German Parliament have been particularly evocative in criticizing the governments of communist Vietnam and Laos for repressing religious minorities.
But agnostics and atheists say they receive little international advocacy.
A report from NGO Humanists International, “Humanists At Risk: Action Report 2020,” documented “lack of separation between state and religion, as well as an array of tactics used against humanists, atheists and non-religious people” in several Southeast Asian states, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Pope Francis did not raise a voice for non-believers during his much-publicized tour of Indonesia last September.
A European Union (EU) spokesperson who spoke to DW would not specifically comment on the court ruling.
“The EU promotes and supports the right of all individuals to have a religion, to hold a belief, or not to believe, as well as the right to manifest and to change or leave one’s religion or belief without fear of violence, persecution, or discrimination,” the spokesperson said.
“We regularly discuss the importance of guaranteeing freedom of religion or belief — including the right not to believe — in appropriate fora such as the EU-Indonesia Human Rights Dialogue,” the latest edition of which was held in July, the spokesperson added.
Despite the legal setbacks, Harsono from HRW believes that progress is still achievable.
“It’s possible to challenge the ruling,” he said, referring to the latest Constitutional Court decision, although he admitted that it may take time.
“We need to educate people to understand the principle of religious freedom and belief in Indonesia,” he noted.
However, scholar Nugraha reckons that Hidayat’s ruling last month “opens the door to more constitutional petitions against laws that are not in line with pan-religious values.”