The Dynamics of the Legal Construction of Blasphemy in Indonesia and Singapore

Abstract

The legal regulation of blasphemy has followed markedly uneven trajectories across jurisdictions. The United Nations and the international human rights movement have criticized the persistence of blasphemy norms, and many states have removed such prohibitions from their criminal codes; Indonesia and Singapore, however, continue to regulate blasphemy and related intolerant conduct. This study addresses two questions: how freedom of religion is protected under international law and within the legal systems of Indonesia and Singapore, and how blasphemy is legally constructed in the two jurisdictions. It adopts a normative juridical method combining statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches. At the international level, religious freedom is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Both Indonesia and Singapore recognize and guarantee freedom of religion, although Singapore presents itself constitutionally as a secular state. Indonesia maintains comprehensive and strict prohibitions on blasphemy, whereas Singapore does not prohibit blasphemy as such but regulates religion in the interest of social order and national security. Singapore’s criminal sanctions are less severe than Indonesia’s, and Singapore allows conviction records to be rendered spent. Indonesia, by contrast, treats blasphemy as a serious offense and provides for it in numerous legal instruments carrying severe criminal penalties. The comparison demonstrates that the two states adopt structurally different models of legal protection: Indonesia frames blasphemy as an offense against the sanctity of religion itself, whereas Singapore frames comparable conduct as a threat to public order and inter-group harmony rather than to religion as such. This distinction, rather than the severity of criminal sanctions alone, explains the divergent trajectories of legal reform in the two jurisdictions.