Counselors jail for insulting Islam

Counselors jail for insulting Islam

ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Probolinggo

Seven former counselors at a drug and cancer rehabilitation
center in Probolinggo were sentenced on Thursday to jail terms of
between three and five years for the crime of insulting Islam, a
clear sign that the East Java judiciary is clamping down on
alternative Islamic thought despite the religious freedoms
guaranteed by the Constitution.

The verdict at the Probolinggo District Court came after the
Malang District Court sentenced a Muslim preacher last month to
two years in jail for introducing an Indonesian translation of
the Arabic sholat prayer.

At the Probolinggo trial, the panel of judges found that the
seven counselors, through their teachings at the Cahaya Alam
Cancer and Drug Addiction Healing Foundation, had introduced
teachings and practices that contravened key precepts of Islam.
These included introducing notions of "free sex" and a belief
that recognized Satan as a creature who served God. The main
evidence behind the allegations was a book of guidelines, which
the clinic had circulated among patients.

The judges handed down six five-year jail terms to the six
male counselors, including foundation chairman Ardi Husen, while
the only woman in the group, Mufidah, received three years.

The clinic, which was established in 1991, had treated
thousands of people suffering from cancer and drug addiction.

Police began to investigate the clinic's alternative healing
activities in May, after the local Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI)
issued an edict calling the foundation's teachings heretical. The
council had earlier obtained one of the foundation's books from a
former patient.

Hundreds of people raided the group's headquarters in
Karangpilang shortly after the edict was issued, vandalizing the
interior and driving out patients waiting to be treated at the
clinic.

Police later arrested the counselors for causing a disturbance
after preventing the crowd from attacking them. They were later
charged with the crime of insulting Islam.

Lawyers for the defense had argued the counselors should never
have been brought to court, calling the prosecution excessive and
politically motivated; a response to MUI's edict.

Neither should the defendants have been put on trial for
publishing a book that had never been officially banned by the
government, they said.

The defense team slammed groups like MUI, which it said were
taking on the role of a moral police; trying to punish the
counselors for their beliefs; something they had no power to do
under Indonesian law.

Violence against groups seen by religious fundamentalists to
be at odds with Islam has increased over recent months, despite
the country's Constitution guaranteeing the right of people to
freely practice their beliefs.

The Probolinggo trial comes after a group of Muslim hard-
liners earlier this week attacked property belonging to members
of the Ahmadiyah religious sect in Cianjur, West Java. That sect,
an offshoot of Islam, believes in another prophet after Muhammad.

Police arrested 48 people and named 12 suspects for destroying
property belonging to Ahmadiyah members.