Indonesian Woman Who Brought Dog To Mosque, Charged With Blasphemy, Released

An Indonesian woman who was charged with blasphemy for bringing a dog to a mosque was acquitted on Wednesday on grounds of her having a mental illness.

A panel of three judges at Cibinong District Court in West Java province absolved the charges against Suzethe Margareth because of her mental health.

“The defendant cannot be convicted because of her inability to take responsibility as she has psychiatric disorders,” presiding judge Indra Meinantha Vidi said in an ABC News report. “What she has done was part of her mental illness.”
Last July, a video circulated online in Indonesia, where majority of the population are Muslims, of a dog running around a mosque in the West Java district of Bogor while Margareth was shown to be upset and was arguing with worshippers.

The dog was chased out of the mosque and died a day later when it was hit by a car when members of an animal welfare group tried to take it into their custody.

Most Muslims view dogs as impure and the conservative Muslim community insisted to bring the incident to court.

Amnesty International called the case “unfortunate and absurd”.

“The state’s priority should be her well-being,” Amnesty International’s executive director in Indonesia, Usman Hamid, said. “Her actions may have felt insensitive but these issues can be resolved peacefully, it is not a matter for the courts.”

Blasphemy is reportedly a criminal offense in Indonesia with the serving a five-year prison sentence as a maximum penalty.

In 2018, a court in Sumatra sentenced a woman to 18 months of prison for blasphemy because she complained about the mosque’s speakers being too loud.

She was released on parole in May.