Ahlulbayt News Agency: A comedian named Aulia Rakhman has been sentenced to seven months in prison on charges of blasphemy in Muslim majority Indonesia.
The sentence was handed down by a court in the nation after Rakhman made a joke about the name Muhammad, according to a local legal official.
Rakhman, who hails from Lampung Province on Sumatra island, was convicted of inciting hatred through his stand-up comedy routine at an event in December, as reported by Ricky Ramadhan, a spokesman for the Lampung prosecutor’s office, AFP reported on Tuesday.
The comedian had reportedly joked at a cafe in the provincial capital, Bandar Lampung, about how names like Muhammad had lost their positive connotations due to the number of ill-behaved Indonesians who bear them.
Muhammad is one of the most common male names in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. Rakhman was reported under a blasphemy law that carries a maximum sentence of five years. The prosecutors had initially sought an eight-month term for him.
The law prohibits anyone from making statements that are contrary to any of Indonesia’s six official religions or attempting to prevent someone from adhering to one of those religions. Rakhman was found guilty last week, but the verdict was only made public on Tuesday.
“The defendant admitted and regretted his actions, behaved politely at the trial, and the defendant has never been convicted,” said Ricky. He added that the “aggravating factor was the defendant’s actions have disturbed society.”
This incident marks the latest in a series of blasphemy cases in the country. In 2022, six people were arrested on charges of blasphemy over a bar chain’s free alcohol promotion for patrons named Muhammad. In 2017, Jakarta’s former governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known as Ahok, was sentenced to nearly two years in prison on blasphemy charges.
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The sentence was handed down by a court in the nation after Rakhman made a joke about the name Muhammad, according to a local legal official.
Rakhman, who hails from Lampung Province on Sumatra island, was convicted of inciting hatred through his stand-up comedy routine at an event in December, as reported by Ricky Ramadhan, a spokesman for the Lampung prosecutor’s office, AFP reported on Tuesday.
The comedian had reportedly joked at a cafe in the provincial capital, Bandar Lampung, about how names like Muhammad had lost their positive connotations due to the number of ill-behaved Indonesians who bear them.
Muhammad is one of the most common male names in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. Rakhman was reported under a blasphemy law that carries a maximum sentence of five years. The prosecutors had initially sought an eight-month term for him.
The law prohibits anyone from making statements that are contrary to any of Indonesia’s six official religions or attempting to prevent someone from adhering to one of those religions. Rakhman was found guilty last week, but the verdict was only made public on Tuesday.
“The defendant admitted and regretted his actions, behaved politely at the trial, and the defendant has never been convicted,” said Ricky. He added that the “aggravating factor was the defendant’s actions have disturbed society.”
This incident marks the latest in a series of blasphemy cases in the country. In 2022, six people were arrested on charges of blasphemy over a bar chain’s free alcohol promotion for patrons named Muhammad. In 2017, Jakarta’s former governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known as Ahok, was sentenced to nearly two years in prison on blasphemy charges.
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