Man Gets Jail For Declaring Himself An Atheist

By Ahmad Fuad Yahya JAKARTA (Indonesia), June 15 (Bernama) -- A district court in western Sumatra has sentenced a 32-year-old man to jail for blasphemy after he publicly declared himself an atheist. The Muaro District Court Thursday sentenced Alexander Aan, a Minang civil servant, to 30 months in jail and fined him US$31.65 million (Rp100 million) in default two months in jail. Aan is believed to be the first person in Indonesia to be sent to prison for being an atheist. The Jakarta Post English daily front-paged the story on Friday, quoting presiding judge Eka Prasetya Budi Dharma as saying that Aan was proven guilty of blasphemy against Islam and insulting Prophet Muhammad through his personal Facebook account "Alex Aan" and the "Ateis Minang" Facebook group, of which he was an administrator. The judge said Aan's open declaration that he was an atheist, which could be read by many people, was not an acceptable behaviour for a citizen and civil servant under the state ideology of Pancasila and the Constitution, which obliges every citizen to have a religion. The prosecution, which deemed the sentence as too lenient, has filed for an appeal. Prosecutors had earlier sought to have Aan sentenced to 42 months in prison. -- BERNAMA