An instructive event in “Islamically moderate” Indonesia remains timely as an illustration of Islamic “tolerance”: Meiliana, a Buddhist woman tired of enduring a loudspeaker near her home blasting out the Muslim Call to Prayer, had the temerity, back in 2016, to complain about the noise; she asked a Muslim neighbor if the volume might be turned down. For this mild request she was arrested, held for two years, finally put on trial, and then, having been convicted in August 2018 of “blasphemy,” she was sentenced to 18 months in jail. She lost her appeal in April 2019, but was released on parole the following month.
But did her complaint constitute “blasphemy” at all? She made no remark about the contents of the call to prayer, but only complained about its excruciating noise level. “Blasphemy” ordinarily means “the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things; profane talk.” Did she speak about God or sacred things? She did not. She was not complaining about the message, but only about the painfully loud broadcasting, right near her house, of the muezzin’s azan, five times a day. Had the noise been as loud and as frequent, from church bells, she would have complained just as forcefully. And why, one might well wonder, did the loudspeaker have to be used at all, given that nowadays, Muslims can receive on their phones, and most reliably, the Call to Prayer five times a day?
Some — including at least one Muslim working with Amnesty International — were outraged at the time of her conviction and sentencing:
Her lawyer, Ranto Sibarani, said they would appeal the verdict.
“We will appeal the verdict because the judges could not prove that our client has committed blasphemy,” he told The Jakarta Post.
Responding to the sentencing, Usman Hamid, Amnesty International Indonesia’s executive director, said: “Making a complaint about noise is not a criminal offence. This ludicrous decision is a flagrant violation of freedom of expression.
“Sentencing someone to 18 months in prison for something so trivial is a stark illustration of the increasingly arbitrary and repressive application of the blasphemy law in the country.
The news story about her appeal being denied contains this telling detail: “While she has so far served eight months for her crime, eight men convicted of destroying 14 Buddhist temples in the town were sentenced to average sentences of six weeks.” Yet there must be some judges in “moderate” Indonesia who recognize that a complaint about noise levels does not constitute “blasphemy.” And there must be some decibel level which the fair-minded will agree is simply too loud, no matter what the contents. Or is there to be no limit to the loudness of the Muslim Call to Prayer, amplified by loudspeakers, that neighbors must endure?
Remember, too, that the Call to Prayer of which Meiliana was complaining was broadcast through loudspeakers five times a day, beginning before sunrise and ending after sunset. She was convicted of “blasphemy”: in the Muslim view, no non-Muslim has a right to complain about how Muslims conduct any of their affairs, including the volume of the loudspeaker used by the muezzin who summons Believers to prayer. Muslims, after all, are “the best of peoples,” while non-Muslims are “the most vile of creatures.”
What does this incident tell us? It tells us that even in “moderate” Indonesia, Muslims, and the justice system, are quick to label as “blasphemy” almost anything non-Muslims do that offends them. And what offends them includes the uppity Infidel who dares to complain about noise levels, a complaint which is then labeled “blasphemy.”
Back in 2016, after Meiliana was first arrested for saying that the azan was “too loud” and “hurt” her ears, and for having asked a Muslim neighbor if the loudspeaker’s volume could be turned lower, enraged Muslims took out their fury on the entire community of Chinese in North Sumatra. A Muslim mob destroyed prayer equipment, statues of the Buddha, tables, chairs, lamps in Buddhist temples, while fourteen temples were set on fire, all because one woman had made a most modest request to lower the noise level.
Meiliana endured three years of hell, from the time she was first accused of blasphemy in 2016 until she was freed on parole last May. And she remains in great physical danger. She is not safe in her old neighborhood. Some Muslim or Muslims, still convinced that she was guilty of “blasphemy,” and that she was insufficiently punished, may well decide to inflict on her the punishment — death — that “blasphemers” deserve. She has likely moved from North Sumatra — turning her life upside down — and if she has not done so, she remains vulnerable. Even if she has moved in the six months since she was freed, she will never again feel quite safe in Muslim-majority Indonesia. All because she mildly inquired if a loudspeaker’s volume might just possibly be turned down.
Philis O'Shaughnessy says
This is islam law? Why don’t you turn down the loud bully offensive UGLY yelling speaker.
mortimer says
Today, there is no need for a loud call to prayer, since the call to prayer can be sent by radio waves to every cell phone via wide choice of ‘adnan’ apps available on line. Most Muslims don’t live or work near a mosque, because they don’t live in a little village.
The loud speakers are obsolete. Because they are obsolete (due to cell phones), this sentence is totally absurd. Most people in the city will not be able to hear the loud speaker, but they will not ignore the sound of their cell phone app.
SemiDave says
True that the sentence is absurd.
The premise that cell phone apps could repace the “loud call to prayer” is however lost in the fact that this call to prayer is actually a method of reinforcement to brainwashing. Cultish behaviour for a cult needs no basis in common sense.
revereridesagain says
+1
Ole Pederson says
You are mistaken. The Muslim call to prayer does not address the Muslims but the infidels to show them they are in “due submission”.
Lisel Sipes says
The Muslim cult uses this as a way of aggravating other people. That’s the point.
Student of History says
The call to prayer is deliberately loud because wherever it can be heard it is moslem territory. A silent cell phone call does not achieve the same thing. And they use taqyyia to lie about the mosque’s and its call to prayer real purpose.
SemiDave says
+1
Dan says
All that call to prayer stuff originated back when the only means of communication was for the imam to holler from the tower.
Since these bozos already use modern technology; electricity, computers, the internet and such, and LOUDSPEAKERS, the ONLY reason they won’t use alarm clocks and cell phone aps for call to prayer is to rub everybody else’s faces in the dirt about Islam.
Nicholas says
The goal is auditory subjugation of the populace! It’s a battle cry, five times a day!! Muslims see themselves as warriors for their belligerent little sky daddy and his wind up toy of a prophet.
Carl -stealth Infidel- says
The words of the Koran are of manure, created by a “mind” of manure. The best of all people must therefore be of manure. Jeremiah spoke of people of or as manure. It appears that the people of or as manure in Jeremiah’s day has organized into the best of all people.
Lisel Sipes says
That’s about it!
PRCS says
A conservative group, Islamic Community Forum, said Meilana’s sentence was too light. The maximum sentence for blasphemy is five years.
Well, of course.
Brian K says
Good grief this sounds like what happens to anyone who makes a politically incorrect statement in the US. The left has similar unwritten blasphemy laws. Cancel culture takes many forms.
No Muzzies Here says
Just a small reminder of the rights of non-Muslims in Islamic countries: NONE.
Battle says
+100
tim gallagher says
This report made me think of that Muslim mayor of London crapping on about how wonderful diversity is, and how “diversity is our strength” and all that lying he does along those lines. The mayor is a Muslim and this report here shows how totally Islam stomps all over non-Muslims continually. Islam crushes diversity and tolerance. Appalling what has happened to this Buddhist woman and what a lying piece of crap that London mayor is with his praise of “diversity” and tolerance. I’m sure that mayor would just love to have Islam take control and crush non-Muslims and end diversity. For Muslims, diversity and tolerance are just things to be exploited until they can grab power.
Peter WF says
Don’t know if this would work –
Had a friend who solved his noisy neighbor problem by playing the pope’s high mass to them on the Sunday morning after the party.
Linde Barrera says
To Peter WF-I love what your friend did. I was in Hamtramck, Michigan in March 2019, which is a suburb of Detroit. There are many Muslims in that location, and the hostel I was staying in was very near a house-type mosque where the call to prayer came at 6 am. I asked the hostel owner if there was a noise ordinance, but he said he was unaware of anything like that.
At night about 8 pm I heard in the street a call to prayer in Arabic and some Islamic-type music. So as I was walking around I started singing very loudly the great Christian hymn “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken” to counter the Muslim-type music. I was proud of myself.
It amazed me how so many non-Muslims in that community did not seem to mind the community noise intrusions so early in the morning and at night time when young children go to bed.
Yohanan says
In Jerusalem with the fast growing ultraorthodox Jewish opulation, there are yeshivot (religus schools nad colleges) near secualr neighborhoods which
In Israel Knesset attempts to strengthen noise laws with amendments specially regulations places of worship have been stymied by both Arab and ultraorthodox Jewish parties.
MK Yogev alleges Haredi-Arab collusion over Muezzin bill, enlistment law. Jerusalem Post. June 19, 2018
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/MK-Yogev-alleges-Haredi-Arab-collusion-over-Muezzin-bill-enlistment-law-560356
Another reference (page in Hebrew) in Israel Ministry of Environrmental Protection, “Noise in Residential Areas, 3. Places of Worship https://www.gov.il/he/departments/guides/residential_noise?chapterIndex=3
There is difference in volume and in content between unamplified voices, bells and loudspeakers. Loudspeakers can be disruptive. You who do not (yet) suffer noise extremes and nuisances from places of worship, consider yourself lucky.
Yohanan says
Correction of incomplete 1st paragraph: Besides muzzein of mosques, loudspeakers of yeshivot have become another religious source of noise pollution here in Jerusalem. With the fast growing ultraorthodox Jewish population, there are yeshivot (orthodox Jewish religious schools and colleges) which have opened in or near secular, non-orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. Some have taken to liberally using strong loudspeakers. Particularly on Friday afternoon along with messages announcing Sabbath candlelighting some have taken to broadicasting their music. If this disruptive nuisance will continue to be allowed depends on our local and national politics, including the currently near stalemated Knesset coalition forming…
Dave says
It’s clearly an act of domination. Why else would there be such drastic reprocussions for asking for moderation of volume.
Dualism is the MO of Islam.
But the same applies to the censorious PC authoritarians; recently elucidated by Sacha Baron Cohen at the ADL.
Arrest and imprisonment for subjective “hate” crime is already a daily reality in many “tolerant” western countries.
The same doctrine with the same effect…
“We are good, they are bad.”
jca reid says
She’s already done the time plus 6months more! There is NO tolerance under Islam. A bat-crap ideology thought up by a perverted, 7th. Century psycho, by now followed & endorsed by 1.5Billion dingbats!
OLD GUY says
What a true loving and caring islamic religion. They are so insecure in their belief of what Muhammad teaches they can not allow any question about their faith even to the low level of turning down the speaker for the call to prayer. But our church bells bother the islamic.
Infidel says
Blasphemy is when one violates his/her own religion. If I deny belief in Shiva, then I’d, as a Hindu, be guilty of blasphemy. But if I denied that Christ is God, I’m not: I’d only be guilty of it if I were Christian
These islamocracies need to learn what blasphemy is. Us non-Muslims rejecting Mohammed is NOT blasphemy
gravenimage says
When A Simple Complaint About Noise Leads to A Jail Term
……………….
Disgusting. And this is what Muslims have planned for *all* of us.