Insults to religion have the potential to stoke tensions and result in physical violence. To protect religious sensitivities, speech which insults religion may be criminalised, even in countries where freedom of speech is enshrined as a constitutional right. The purpose of this article is to look at the role played by the state in dealing with speech which insults religion, through an examination of three Southeast Asian case studies. This article attempts to provide a comparison of the constitutional provisions and specific legislation relating to the insulting of religion in the three countries, as well as consider how the laws have worked in practice. It finds that while the 'law on the books' across the three countries may have broad similarities in the way they are drafted, they differ vastly in the ways they are applied and enforced, due to differences in the state-religion relationship, religious demographics and the influence of religious nationalism. At the same time, despite the social, political and cultural heterogeneity of the three countries, the prioritisation of communitarian interests in the three countries over the freedom of speech suggests the continued salience of “Asian values” in Southeast Asia.

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https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/7/602

This paper develops the idea of “sacred modernities” to explore how the state-led regulation of religion shapes religious communities and religious subjects therein. Sacred modernities define the ways in which sacredness is understood and engaged with under conditions of secular modernity, and in particular, how sacredness is experienced within a context of micro-regulated religious space. We illustrate these ideas through an empirical examination of how Singapore’s Hindu community engages with the idea of sacredness in and through the temple. By contrasting the experiences of Singaporean and non-Singaporean Hindus, we argue that Singapore’s temples offer an aestheticized experience of the sacred that is rational in its affects. Differential expectations and experiences of the sacred can reveal divisions within the Hindu community along Singaporean/migrant lines. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.