Adi Renaldi, Jakarta – For nearly two decades, hundreds of Ahmadiyya Muslims have lived in a cramped government shelter on the Indonesian island of Lombok, after they were attacked by a mob that accused them of being deviant.

At the shelter, they are watched by local authorities, their movements curtailed, and their social media activity closely monitored. So when Sholeh, a community leader, posted a picture of a social gathering on Facebook earlier this year, a local official asked him to take it down almost immediately.

"The official said we are heading toward general elections, so you must take down your post because it will incite public disturbance," Sholeh, who goes by a single name, told Rest of World. "So I took down the post."

The Ahmadiyyas, who belong to a reform movement that was born out of Sunni Islam, are not recognized as Muslims in many parts of the world, including Indonesia. While the Southeast Asian nation is home to hundreds of faiths and indigenous communities, about 85% of the population is Muslim, and the government only recognizes six religions. Despite government assurances to uphold all religious beliefs, minority communities live in constant fear and face increasing curbs on their freedom of expression, Leonard Chrysostomos Epafras, a researcher at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies, told Rest of World.

"Minority religious groups initially found solace on social media because it provided a safe space where they can meet and express their beliefs," he said. "But as government controls tightened, social media became a sort of hunting ground – and it is no longer the government that is the hunter, but netizens of the majority [religion]."

Indonesia has about 120 million Facebook users, nearly 140 million on YouTube, and more than 125 million users on TikTok. Young religious Muslim influencers have amassed millions of followers as the conservative hijrah movement – which calls on young Muslims to improve by observing religious edicts strictly – has grown due to Saudi Arabian influence, and the power of social media. Their language is often inflammatory.

These include Felix Siauw, a 40-year-old cleric whose hard-line position on Islamic interpretations has gained 1.3 million followers on Instagram, and a growing following on TikTok. Zaidan Yahya, a 22-year-old cleric from Central Java, often streams Quranic recitals on TikTok, where his following has grown to more than 2 million in just over a year. Abdul Somad, 47, is a preacher from North Sumatra, with almost 10 million Instagram followers – he has made controversial remarks on Christianity, one of the officially recognized religions in Indonesia, and is known for his anti-LGBTQ+ stance.

Their followers often direct hate speech at religious and other minorities. While Indonesia's laws dictate that religious minority groups must be protected, the country's notorious blasphemy law is often used to target and silence them, Nenden Sekar Arum, executive director of advocacy group Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet) told Rest of World. Social media platforms also fail to moderate hate speech, he said.

"The platforms are often negligent or still have difficulty in moderating hate speech towards religious minorities groups and other marginalized groups – it is not taken down quickly," Nenden said. "Content moderators may lack context in determining if it's hate speech."

Meta and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Google directed Rest of World to YouTube's community guidelines that say it does not allow content "that promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups" based on attributes including religion. In a human rights impact assessment report on Indonesia published in 2021, Meta said that an audit it had commissioned had found that Facebook was associated with "freedom of expression risks related to government actions seeking to enforce blasphemy laws against individuals based on their social media usage." The platform also failed to curb "harassment, bullying, and involuntary 'outing' of of LGBTQ+ users."

As social media platforms fail to curb hate speech against minorities in Indonesia, "it is very possible that there will be more cases of violence or intimidation in the digital context which could spread to the real world," said Nenden.

It is already happening. Last year, hate speech and disinformation directed at Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, who were seeking refuge in Indonesia's Aceh province, led to an attack on their shelter, forcing them to relocate. West Papuans, a racial and religious minority, also experience online abuse, with their protests for independence often met with violence.

Muslims are also subject to the blasphemy law, which punishes deviations from the tenets of Indonesia's six officially recognized religions with up to five years in prison. The law was only used in eight cases in the first four decades after it came into effect in 1965, but convictions have since soared. Last September, social media influencer Lina Lutfiawati was sentenced to two years in prison and fined about $16,000 for blasphemy after she posted a video in which she said an Islamic prayer before eating food that contained pork.

A new criminal code, signed by President Joko Widodo in January 2023, will further criminalize blasphemy and expand it to other religious freedom violations when implemented in 2026, analysts told Rest of World. Authorities have also used technology to monitor religious minorities. In 2018, the government launched the Smart Pakem app, through which members of the public could report cases of "deviant beliefs" and religious heresy. Activists told Rest of World the app – which is no longer available on the Google Play store – made it easier to target religious minorities.

Still, it is not just religious hard-liners who are winning followers online. Husein Ja'far Al Hadar, who has about 3 million followers on TikTok, blends Islamic teachings with informal discussions of issues such as mental health and the environment. As a young boy, he had dreamed of following in his father's footsteps to become a religious scholar and preacher, he told Rest of World.

Now, his teachings reach more than 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube, and more than 5.8 million followers on Instagram. Often sporting jeans and a casual shirt with his taqiyah skullcap, he has been dubbed "Habib Millennial" by his mostly young followers. "My strategy is to use daily language mixed with humor, so that it can easily be accepted by the public," said the 36-year-old who studied Islamic philosophy, and holds a master's degree in Quranic hermeneutics. "This way I can promote plurality and tolerance. I have invited people from different religions, even an atheist, to sit down with me and talk. The idea is to agree to disagree, without attacking each other."

This is not an option, though, for religious minorities in the country. The Indonesian Baha'i community has long locked the comment section on their Instagram account to avoid hate speech directed at them. For Sholeh, posting on social media is not even that important – if he and the other Ahmadiyyas can practice their religion freely.

"The one thing we want is to go back to our village, to live and observe our faith freely," he said. "We're still trying to make that happen."Adi Renaldi is a multimedia journalist based in Jakarta.

Source: https://restofworld.org/2024/indonesia-muslim-influencers