For Indonesian Atheists, a Community of Support Amid Constant Fear JAKARTA - Karina is an atheist, but her friends jokingly call her "the prophet." That is because she is helping nurture a community for unbelievers in predominantly Muslim Indonesia, where trumpeting one's disbelief in God can lead to abuse, ostracism and even prison. "It's very normal for atheists to be paranoid because the environment does not support them," said Ms. Karina, 26, who uses only one name. But, she said, "in this group people don't need to be afraid." Indonesian Atheists was founded with a Facebook page in 2008 and now holds regular gatherings. The Internet has offered its members a safe space to air their opinions, and the feeling of community has made them braver about gathering in public. But recent prosecutions of people who made online comments deemed blasphemous by the country's courts have stoked fears that they too could come under attack. "Members" growing outspokenness and courage does not indicate that other people increasingly accept us," said Karl Karnadi, 29, the group's founder. He lives in Germany and is candid about being a nonbeliever on Facebook and Twitter. Inside Indonesia, atheists are circumspect about their views, he said, and refrain from public criticism of Islam or any statements that could run afoul of the country's blasphemy law. Still, he said, that is an advance from a time when people were fiercely secretive. "At first people think they're alone," Mr. Karl said in a Skype interview. But after we meet each other, we feel like we're accepted. We're together if anything happens to us, and that feeling of community is very valuable. While the Indonesian Constitution enshrines freedom of religion, legal protection is afforded only to six official faiths - Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. Citizens are required to list their religion on national identity cards. Violating the country's blasphemy law by insulting or interfering with the practice of one of the official faiths can bring a five-year prison term. Concerns about the application of that law against religious minorities have risen amid an increase in religiously motivated violence that rights campaigners say is threatening a tradition of tolerance in Indonesia. A recent report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch said reported cases of religious violence in Indonesia had increased by 20 percent since 2010. The Setara Institute, a research organization based in Jakarta, documented 264 attacks on religious minorities last year. Those perpetuating the violence are largely militant Islamists who have an "uncompromising view of religious purity," said Phelim Kine, a deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. Compounding that is a complete failure by the Indonesian government to confront this violence and put a stop to it. Officials say that while, under the Constitution, each citizen is entitled to whatever private belief he chooses, religious activities outside the home must be controlled by the state to maintain public order. "Someone who belongs to one particular religion has also to respect other religious communities," said Nur Kholis Setiawan, head of the center for research and development of religious life at the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The state has an authority and an obligation to manage religious life in the public forum. It has done so, however, through several regulations that Mr. Kine says have been used against religious minorities, including a ministerial decree that has prevented Christian groups from opening churches and the 1965 blasphemy law, which courts have used more than a dozen times since 2005 to prosecute Shiites, Christians and atheists. Last year Alexander Aan, a civil servant in West Sumatra, was charged with blasphemy for posting "God does not exist" along with cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on a Facebook page he administered dedicated to atheism. Months later another man, Sebastian Joe, was charged under the same law for insulting Islam, also on Facebook.