A Muslim preacher was arrested in Indonesia on Wednesday on charges including blasphemy and inciting hatred, after his religious school faced criticism for allowing women to preach and pray alongside men, police said.
The Al-Zaytun Islamic school in the Muslim-majority province of West Java, the most populous in the Southeast Asian archipelago, has been the subject of controversy from conservative groups, who accuse it of applying a version of Islam that is incompatible with the Koran.
The headmaster of the boarding school, Panji Gumilang, 77, was arrested on Wednesday after being questioned by police, national police spokesman Ahmad Ramadhan told reporters.
Panji Gumilang faces up to five years in prison for blasphemy, six years for inciting hatred and ten years for spreading false information and intentionally disturbing public order, according to the charges against him.
The school caused an uproar in conservative circles after a video was posted on social networks at the end of April showing women praying in the same room as men.
In traditional Islam, women pray behind men, while delivering sermons is a task reserved for men.
The school is also accused of links with Darul Islam, a political movement that wanted to impose an Islamic state in Indonesia by force in the 1950s-1960s.
Blasphemy has been punishable under Indonesian law since 1965, but the measure was rarely enforced until the fall of the anti-religious dictator Suharto in 1998.
Conservative Islam is on the rise in the country of some 278.9 million people, which has the world’s largest Muslim population. However, human rights activists say the blasphemy law restricts freedom of expression and religious freedom.
