Human Rights in Asian Contexts

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Human Rights in Asian Contexts was a demanding senior level Asian Studies course. This course required the students to write a 500 word research paper on a moral dilemma.  My paper analyzed the options the People's Consultative Assembly of the Republic of Indonesia (MPR) had in responding to human rights violations arising from religious laws allowed in regions such as Aceh, and that had separatists until the early 2000s.

 

I argued using consequentialist reasoning that rather than trying to regulate the religious laws themselves, the MPR has a responsibility to keep peace which would require areas like Aceh to have the freedom to make religious laws, while also stopping human rights violations. In order to do so, the government could regulate what kind of punishments could legally be given in all courts, so that people convicted of religious crimes would be protected from harsh punishments that Sharia law sometimes gives. For more information, read my full paper: Governmental Regulation of Religion in Indonesia: Practices from the Past and the Responsibilities of the People’s Consultative Assembly Today.