Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Indonesian officials took away the business licence of a chain of bars and restaurants in Jakarta after ...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Indonesian officials took away the business licence of a chain of bars and restaurants in Jakarta after police charged six employees with blasphemy over a promotion that gave free drinks to people with the names Mohammad or Maria.
Critics have said that Indonesia's strict blasphemy laws are hurting the country's long-standing reputation for being tolerant and accepting of differences. Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country in the world.
Religious groups told the police about the drinks promotion at the "Holywings" chain, which led to an investigation. The six were charged under the blasphemy law, which can get you up to five years in jail, and the internet law, which has a blasphemy provision that can get you up to ten years in jail.
In a Facebook post that was later taken down, the chain said that men named Mohammad and women named Maria could get a free bottle of gin every Thursday.
The government of Jakarta said on its website that 12 places in the capital were shut down on Tuesday because they did not have licences to sell alcohol.
Holywings Indonesia has apologised for the promotion, which the company says was made without management's knowledge.
Police said that the promotion was made by employees to try to meet sales goals.
Andreas Harsono, an Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that the "increasingly dangerous" blasphemy law and a law about online activity were getting worse.
"These six people just made an ad for alcohol, which may seem silly in a country that is becoming more Islamic but is not illegal by any international standard," he said.
Most of the time, the blasphemy law has been used against people who are thought to have insulted Islam. For example, the former Christian governor of Jakarta, Basuki "Ahok" Purnama, was sentenced to two years in prison in 2017 for blasphemy, even though most people thought the charges were made up for political reasons.
Human Rights Watch says that since the blasphemy law was passed in 1965, Indonesia has put more than 150 people in jail, most of them from religious minorities.
