Monday, September 10th 2012, the Wahid Institute organized a discussion to review the book by Paul Marshall and Nina Shea entitle “Silenced; How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide”. The author of the book Paul Marshall came and shared his ideas which described in his book. Anita Wahid, the Executive Director of The Wahid Institute acted as the moderator.

The book itself is actually opened by an article wrote by the late K.H. Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur). It describes about blasphemy in Islamic majority popuation countries including Indonesia which based on a survey on how apostasy and blasphemy rules and regulation are applied in many Muslim countries. According to the author, Indonesia is very similar to Pakistan.

Paul Marshall is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and the author and editor of more than twenty books on religion and politics, especially religious freedom, including most recently that is co-editor with Nina Shea (2011) entitled, “Silenced How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide”. He has written hundred of article which have been translated into many languages such as Russian, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Danish, Albanian, Japanese, Malay, Korean, Arabic, Farsi, and Chinese. He has frequently became the source person fro the academic lectures and media including the interview with ABC Evening News; CNN; PBS; Fox; the Broadcasting Corporations from various countries like British, Australian, Canadian, South African, and Japanese; and Al Jazeera. His work has been published in the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Christian Science Monitor, First Things, New Republic, Weekly Standard, Reader’s Digest, and many other newspapers and magazines. (Lutfi Khoiri Rosyida)