For Indonesian atheists, a community of support amid constant fear

Indonesian Atheists was founded with a Facebook page in 2008 and now holds regular gatherings. The Internet has offered its members a safe space to air their opinions, and the feeling of community has made them braver about gathering in public. But recent prosecutions of people who made online comments deemed blasphemous by the country’s courts have stoked fears that they too could come under attack.

“Members’ growing outspokenness and courage does not indicate that other people increasingly accept us,” said Karl Karnadi, 29, the group’s founder. He lives in Germany and is candid about being a nonbeliever on Facebook and Twitter. Inside Indonesia, atheists are circumspect about their views, he said, and refrain from public criticism of Islam or any statements that could run afoul of the country’s blasphemy law. Still, he said, that is an advance from a time when people were fiercely secretive. …

While the Indonesian Constitution enshrines freedom of religion, legal protection is afforded only to six official faiths — Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. Citizens are required to list their religion on national identity cards. Violating the country’s blasphemy law by insulting or interfering with the practice of one of the official faiths can bring a five-year prison term.

Concerns about the application of that law against religious minorities have risen amid an increase in religiously motivated violence that rights campaigners say is threatening a tradition of tolerance in Indonesia.