Jakarta, 6 April (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Indonesian prosecutors have fouled up the indictment of Alexander Aan, the civil servant in Padang, West Sumatra accused of professing his atheism on Facebook, his lawyers say.
Alexander should have been charged under a joint regulation of the Religious Affairs Ministry, the Attorney General’s Office and the Home Ministry, Ronny Saputra, an attorney from the Padang office of the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH), said.
Ronny said sections of the indictment alleging that Alexander had called on others to “embrace atheism” were unclear.
“The prosecutors have yet to describe when or where my client had done such acts,” he said.
Alexander only posted images and text from the “Minang Atheist” Facebook group on his own account, Ronny said, including such as comics titled “The Prophet Muhammad has been attracted to his own daughter-in-law” and “The Prophet Muhammad had been sleeping with his wife’s maid”.
“The article was first circulated in a forum called “Faith Freedom Indonesia 2008” and has been accessible until now. Meanwhile, the same comic was aired by Metro TV on January 20th in 2010,” Ronny said.
Alexander was merely one of the 2,602 members of the “Minang Atheist”, which he said was founded by 70-year-old Jusfiq Hadjar, a resident of Leiden, the Netherlands, according to the attorney.
“The defendant has never met or directly spoken with Jusfiq,” Ronny said, adding that Alexander had made a public apology for his mistake.
Alexander should have been charged under a joint regulation of the Religious Affairs Ministry, the Attorney General’s Office and the Home Ministry, Ronny Saputra, an attorney from the Padang office of the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH), said.
Ronny said sections of the indictment alleging that Alexander had called on others to “embrace atheism” were unclear.
“The prosecutors have yet to describe when or where my client had done such acts,” he said.
Alexander only posted images and text from the “Minang Atheist” Facebook group on his own account, Ronny said, including such as comics titled “The Prophet Muhammad has been attracted to his own daughter-in-law” and “The Prophet Muhammad had been sleeping with his wife’s maid”.
“The article was first circulated in a forum called “Faith Freedom Indonesia 2008” and has been accessible until now. Meanwhile, the same comic was aired by Metro TV on January 20th in 2010,” Ronny said.
Alexander was merely one of the 2,602 members of the “Minang Atheist”, which he said was founded by 70-year-old Jusfiq Hadjar, a resident of Leiden, the Netherlands, according to the attorney.
“The defendant has never met or directly spoken with Jusfiq,” Ronny said, adding that Alexander had made a public apology for his mistake.
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