Drawing on human rights discourse and a study of the difficulties faced by religious minority groups (using the Ahmadiyya minority group as a case study), this book presents three interconnected challenges to human rights culture in Indonesia. First, it presents a normative challenge, describing the gap between philosophical and normative principles of human rights on one side and the overall problems and critical issues of human rights at national and local levels on the other. Second, it considers the political problems in developing and strengthening human rights culture. The political challenge addresses the ability (or inability) of the state to guarantee the rights of certain individuals and minority groups. Third, it examines the sociological challenge of majority-minority group relationships in human rights discourse and practices. This book describes the background of human rights in Indonesia and reviews the previous literature on the issue. It also presents a comprehensive review of the discourses about human rights and political changes in contemporary Indonesia. The analysis focuses on how human rights challenges affect the situation of religious minorities, looking in particular at the Ahmadiyya as a minority group that experiences human rights violations such as discrimination, persecution, and violence. The study fills out its treatment of these issues by examining the involvement of actors both from the state and society, addressing also the politics of human rights protection.

Using the high-profile 2017 blasphemy trial of the former governor of Jakarta, Basuki ‘Ahok’ Tjahaja Purnama, as its sole case study, this book assesses whether Indonesia’s liberal democratic human rights legal regime can withstand the rise of growing Islamist majoritarian sentiment. Specifically, this book analyses whether a 2010 decision of Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has rendered the liberal democratic human rights guarantees contained in Indonesia’s 1945 Constitution ineffective. Key legal documents, including the indictment issued by the North Jakarta Attorney-General and General Prosecutor, the defence’s ‘Notice of Defence’, and the North Jakarta State Court’s convicting judgment, are examined. The book shows how Islamist majoritarians in Indonesia have hijacked human rights discourse by attributing new, inaccurate meanings to key liberal democratic concepts. This has provided them with a human rights law-based justification for the prioritisation of the religious sensibilities and religious orthodoxy of Indonesia’s Muslim majority over the fundamental rights of the country’s religious minorities. While Ahok’s conviction evidences this, the book cautions that matters pertaining to public religion will remain a site of contestation in contemporary Indonesia for the foreseeable future. A groundbreaking study of the Ahok trial, the blasphemy law, and the contentious politics of religious freedom and cultural citizenship in Indonesia, this book will be of interest to academics working in the fields of religion, Islamic studies, religious studies, law and society, law and development, law reform, constitutionalism, politics, history and social change, and Southeast Asian studies.

Human Rights in ASEAN: Indonesian and International Perspectives is a collection of 13 essays that not only offers fresh new insights on the different facets of human rights and their protection in ASEAN, but also 'insider' accounts of the development of the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission for Human Rights. These valuable perspectives have never been shared publicly, and offer a view from both the state and non-governmental organisations' (NGO) perspectives. In addition to these valuable perspectives, this book offers a number of significant case studies of how human rights has been implemented, and the challenges it faces in ASEAN in general, and in Indonesia particularly.

The best country-by-country assessment of human rights. The human rights records of more than ninety countries and territories are put into perspective in Human Rights Watch's signature yearly report. Reflecting extensive investigative work undertaken by Human Rights Watch staff, in close partnership with domestic human rights activists, the annual World Report is an invaluable resource for journalists, diplomats, and citizens, and is a must-read for anyone interested in the fight to protect human rights in every corner of the globe.

Since the first edition, Indonesia has undergone massive political and legal change as part of its post-Soeharto reform process and its dramatic transition to democracy. This work contains 25 new chapters and the 4 surviving chapters have all been revised, where necessary. Indonesia: Law and Society now covers a broad range of legal fields and includes both historical and very up-to-date analyses and views on Indonesian legal issues. It includes work by leading scholars from a wide range of countries. There is still no comparable, English language text in existence.

This book focuses on how Indonesian civil society organisations interact with ASEAN to shape human rights institutionalisation in the region. Using Bourdieu-inspired constructivist IR as an analytical lens, the book argues that there are pre-reflexive norms that dominate the field of interaction in the region that shape the way civil society organisations operate. This has resulted in the diverging advocacy practices, thus complicating human rights institutionalisation process in ASEAN.

(Un) Civil Society and Political Change in Indonesia provides critical analysis of Indonesia’s civil society and its impact on the country’s democratization efforts that does not only take the classical, pro-democratic actors of civil society into account but also portrays uncivil groups and their growing influence on political processes. Beittinger-Lee offers a revised categorization of civil society, including a model to define the sphere of ‘uncivil society’ more closely and to identify several subcategories of uncivil society. This is the first book to portrays various uncivil groups in Indonesia, ranging from vigilantes, militias, paramilitaries, youth groups, civil security task forces and militant Islamic (and other religious) groups, ethnonationalist groups to terrorist organizations and groups belonging to organized crime. Moreover, it provides the reader with an overview of Indonesia’s history, its political developments after the democratic opening, main improvements under the various presidents since Suharto’s fall, constitutional amendments and key reforms in human rights legislation. This book will be of interest to upper level undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in political science and Southeast Asian studies.