A rare legal effort to secure rights for atheists and non-believers was quashed last month by Indonesia's Constitutional Court, which ruled that a citizen must profess a faith, even a minority one, on official documents, and that marriage must conform to religion.

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, officially recognizes six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. While adherents of minority faiths can face discrimination, atheists and non-believers are not even recognized under the law.

In 2012, Alexander Aan, a civil servant, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for blasphemy after sharing atheist content on Facebook.

Indonesia's criminal code punishes blasphemy and the spread of atheism, although technically, it does not criminalize the absence of religious belief itself.

However, non-believers argue that existing laws are selectively enforced to deny them equal protection under the law.

In January 2024, the Constitutional Court allowed individuals from minority religious groups not among the officially recognized six to register as non-specified "believers" on their identity cards.

Campaigners hoped this would pave the way for the inclusion of a "no religion" option.

However, that hope was dashed after two agnostic activists, Raymond Kamil and Teguh Sugiharto, unsuccessfully petitioned the Constitutional Court in October to allow non-believers the right to leave the religion field blank on official documents.

Constitutional Court Justice Arief Hidayat ruled........

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