Pretty Good Podcast caps off its second season with a special two-part series on complexities of freedom of religion and expression online in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim majority and where minorities have historically been the subject of discrimination and hate speech. Our first episode, with academic Leonard Epafras of the Indonesian Consortium of Religious Studies in Yogyakarta, tackles the broader history of religion in the country, as well as zoning in on the youth’s experience of expressing their beliefs online.
The two-part series is part of the Association for Progressive Communications’ (APC) Challenge project, with the aim of “challenging hate narratives and violations of freedom of religion and expression online in Asia”.
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- Indonesia, while not officially a religious country, is home to the world’s largest Muslim majority and legally recognises six faiths: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. Historically, any citizen not belonging to these religions – or even those not belonging to the predominant Islam faith – are discriminated against and face threats to their freedom to express their religious beliefs. For a comprehensive summary of the challenges of religious freedom in the country, check out this article written collaboratively by EngageMedia’s Indonesia staff.
- Leonard Epafras has authored a number of studies on interreligious studies and how religion is expressed and professed online. We highlight two of them here:
- As part of the Challenge project, APC in 2020 conducted a lecture series aimed at diversifying the discourse on hatred, religion and gender in South and Southeast Asia. You can listen to recordings of the three sessions below.
Pretty Good Podcast by EngageMedia is produced remotely and primarily using FOSS tools. We’ve documented our process and learnings at VideoforChange.org.
