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Tolerance on Trial

1 x 46 HD
Broadcaster:  CNA

BAFTA-winning film-maker Mobeen Azhar travels to Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, to investigate how this nation’s historic religious tolerance is being challenged by hard-line Islamic groups demanding that issues of faith be placed at the centre of Indonesian politics.  

 

Although Indonesia has an overwhelming Muslim majority, constitutionally it has remained a secular state. All this could be about to change as conservative Islamic groups across the country gain increasing influence. In May 2017, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama – the former governor of Jakarta and one of a small number of non-Muslim politicians – was sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy in a trial that was widely seen as a measure of Indonesia’s changing religious attitudes and growing intolerance.

 

Mobeen Azhar travels to Jakarta to meet the key figureson both sides of this debate, and asks whether the picture of Indonesia as a tolerant, secular state is increasingly unrealistic? And whether the traditional Indonesian practice of Islam can survive as other more radical forms of Islam start to gain ground?

 

From the series Power and Piety.

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