Jakarta Journo: SBY’s Legacy Soiled On Freedom of Faith

LIFE & TIMES

Jakarta Journo: SBY’s Legacy Soiled On Freedom of Faith

Armando Siahaan | March 20, 2011

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will be remembered for a lot of things, but being a bastion of pluralism is definitely not one of them. Just look at the recent spate of religious violence — chaos left nearly unchecked by the national government, which seems afraid to touch issues such as the Ahmadiyah with a 10-foot pole. It’s enough to make me question if things have actually improved at all since the Suharto era.

Suharto’s New Order regime severely curtailed religious freedoms, tearing apart the 1945 Constitution, which guaranteed citizens the freedom to adopt any religion, thus changing Indonesia into a country that recognizes just five official faiths. Then in 1978, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a directive obligating all Indonesians to disclose their religious affiliations on their identity cards and, bizarrely, forcing us to pick from one of five recognized religions.

But the real root of the country’s religious intolerance is the 1965 Blasphemy Law, which was drafted under Sukarno, but adopted and enforced by Suharto.

The law prohibits any alternative interpretations of the official religions, giving the government the right to restrict and ban deviant sects, and imprison their followers for faith crimes. The Blasphemy Law effectively destroys the separation between church and state, which many argue is a necessary component to a functioning democracy.

Moreover, through totalitarianism and his draconian foot soldiers, Suharto made sure that religious groups, including Muslim hard-liners, were never given the chance to grow into influential forces in society.

Post-Suharto Indonesia has been praised by many foreign commentators as a poster child for democracy in Southeast Asia and the Muslim world. But as recent events suggest, religious freedom has been left in the dust on our glorious march to democracy. A truly democratic Indonesia would revoke the 1965 Blasphemy Law, but reality suggests institutional support for the law will not wane anytime soon.

In fact, instead of rescinding the law, the administration issued a 2008 joint ministerial decree on the Ahmadiyah, based on the law, which severely curbs the minority Islamic sect’s rights.

A series of violent attacks against the Ahmadis followed the decree, and hard-liners felt the attacks were completely justified because of the law. Yudhoyono repeatedly condemned the attacks, but consistently defended the 2008 anti-Ahmadiyah decree.

In the latest development, dozens of Ahmadis in East and West Java converted to mainstream Islam, with widespread rumors that the military pressured the sect’s followers into renouncing their faith. The government and the military denied this claim.

The conversions may represent a triumph for hard-liners, but they are certainly a massive blow to our country’s democratic image.

The corrosion of our religious freedoms has generated criticism both here and abroad. The United States and the European Union have conveyed concern over the escalation of religious tensions in light of the recent killings of three Ahmadis in Banten and the burning of churches in Central Java. Furthermore, a group of 27 US lawmakers last week sent a letter to Yudhoyono demanding that the government overturn the 2008 decree on the Ahmadiyah, as it “runs contrary to the principles of international human rights.”

Suharto severely limited religious freedom, but also prevented religious extremists from harassing minority groups. Yudhoyono’s administration has not only failed to repeal Suharto’s discriminatory laws, but has also given unchecked freedom of speech to all major religious groups, giving hard-liners a megaphone to voice their hate speech and a free pass to act on it.

If Suharto’s era was marked by out-and-out tyranny, it seems Yudhoyono’s era will be remembered for allowing the tyranny of the majority. He still has three years left to make things better, but I’m not holding my breath.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/sbys-legacy...

A ‘difficult marriage’: Sharia and civil law in Indonesia

---The Jakarta Post, Indonesia

Opinion | Fri, 05/21/2010 11:09 AM

A ‘difficult marriage’: Sharia and civil law in Indonesia

Muhamad Ali, Riverside, California

Why do the state and civil society find it so difficult to negotiate whether to implement the sharia or civil law in modern pluralistic Indonesia?

The state continues to function as the legitimate power to produce laws in which the sharia contributes and must adjust to in the Muslim majority, yet pluralistic, nation.

The tensions and negotiations result from a long history of encounters between global and local cultures in the Indonesian archipelago.

During the late colonial era, the world’s economy and capitalism led to the emergence of socialist, nationalist and Islamic organizations.

Pan-Arabism, and pan-Islamism tried to penetrate the Indonesian market of ideas through returning students, teachers and books, but they were unsuccessful. Instead, localized, Java-based organizations were established – with Islam as their spirit and ethic rather than political ideology.

The Republic of Indonesia adopted and adapted centuries of such different types of influences in making laws. The government and the people’s representatives continued to regulate differences based on various and changing communal markers, particularly ethnicity, class and religion.

With the end of the Caliphate system in 1924, Muslims and non-Muslim minorities endorsed the modern nation-state. The earliest debate was about whether or not Islam would become the Constitution.

Thus, the controversy of the Jakarta Chapter emerged about whether or not the Constitution includes the obligation of Muslims following sharia.

Indonesians see law as both the principle and mechanism to managing pluralism and ensuring order, but at the same time, law becomes a site of contentious discourse involving the governments and civil society.

Law and order are closely intertwined, but disorder and sometimes violence have also become part of legal discourse and struggle.

Indonesia’s legal pluralism is manifested primarily from three schools: The Roman Dutch colonial law (although the Dutch later subscribed to French civil law), orally passed down cultural law (adat, customary law), and Islam – predominantly Sunni and Shafi’i. Because Islam does not provide detailed legal procedures, the Dutch derived civil law has become the main source for such procedures.

Sharia at first dealt primarily with some domestic matters, such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance.

Gradually, sharia-minded Muslims sought to incorporate more into the Islamic legal system, including the sharia court (parallel with the civil court), the zakat form of tax collection and distribution, pilgrimage and interest-free banking.

Decentralization – after 32 years of central government control, has lead some regencies to enact Islamic-based bylaws, concerning dress codes, gambling, drugs, and moral issues.

The debates on the formalization of Islamic law at the national and local levels reflect ever increasing influences of global ideas, including with the Iranian revolution, the global movement of caliphate, global Islamic movement for anti-neo-imperialism and neo-liberalism, and more recently the global sentiments of anti-American colonialism in the Middle East.

However, the manifestation of such global ideas remains within the local and national constraints. In the autonomous province of Aceh, for example, due to its unique history, the central government has allowed it to pursue the formalization of Islamic Law.

They have regional law dealing with various aspects of private and public lives of Muslims, excluding non-Muslims.

The sharia council and morality police oversee and restrict people’s prayers, fasting, gambling and sexual relations. The codification of the local law, Qanun, which deals with the Islamic court includes appropriates types of punishments and fines for each infringement.

The Qanun stipulates that non-Muslims, although not subject to Islamic law, shall respect the implementation of the Islamic Law in Aceh.

The Acehnese local rules dealing with heresy, blasphemy and apostasy indicate the increased influence of the religious authority in con-trolling the faith of the people, in the hope for religious conservatism and social order, but without necessarily considering the rights of minorities and the Indonesian Constitution.

The classical and medieval concept of the dhimmi (non-Muslims living in a sharia state but experience restricted rights) has been revived by some, but the idea is seen not realistic.

There are some Islamic movements who see the Constitution of Medina as the model for a pluralistic, tolerant state. That being said, the histories of prophet Muhammad and Indonesian Muslims are different.

Others point to Islamic medieval Spain when talking about coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews, but the still unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and local interfaith tensions overshadow the spirit of harmony.

The persistence of the State Ideology of Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution, which up until this day show how world ideologies (monotheism, humanism, nationalism, democracy and socialism) have their strengths and are relevant to nation building.

The Constitution, which guarantees religious freedom (despite its definition and limits having been contested), provides Indonesians with a basis for justifying their actions toward one another.

In the courts, political speeches, scholarly statements, leaders and people attempt a balancing act: Indonesia being neither an Islamic state, nor a purely Western type secular state; is instead a state of Pancasila, which guarantees freedom of religion, but supports religious development of the population.

The Council of Islamic Scholars, for example, have issued fatwas on minority group, which are not legally binding but are often heard by many.

The Council has, for example, issued fatwas condemning religious pluralism, liberalism and secularism by their very definitions (pluralists believe all religions are equal, liberals use reason over revelation and secularists separate the worldly from the religious).

They also condemned the Jamaah Ahmadiyah sect as heretical, sparking tension and violence against its followers in different parts of Indonesia.

The Constitutional Court’s recent rejection of a judicial review of the 1965 Blasphemy Law, reveals the the persistent mentality that religious differences may still have the power to cause social disorder.

Religious interpretations are subject to law, offering a sense of security. Some say, however, that Indonesia is neither an Arab nor a Western country. Tensions remain between outright Arabization, Westernization, and Indonesianization.

For most, the formalization of Islamic law is against Pancasila and the Constitution. Others argue the Koran has substance and ethics, not details about the kind of governance.

Others suggest that categorizing Muslims as the majority and others as minorities will lead to a lack of diversity among Muslims themselves.

Religion, nationalism and globalization often experience tensions in ways that prophet Muhammad himself and Muslim caliphs never anticipated.

The writer is an assistant professor at the School of Religious Studies, University of California, Riverside.

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/05/21/a-%...aw-indonesia.html

Indonesia’s Religious Ministry Names Hard-Line FPI Among ‘Misguided’ Islamic Sects

---Jakarta Globe, Indonesia    

March 03, 2010

Indonesia’s Religious Ministry Names Hard-Line FPI Among ‘Misguided’ Islamic Sects

The FPI is 'sometimes against correct Islamic teachings,' said a ministry official. (JG Photo/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)In the wake of another case of allegedly “misguided” Islamic teachings that contravene the nation’s blasphemy law, the Ministry of Religious Affairs on Tuesday said there were about 70 potentially illegal sects in Indonesia, including the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front.

“We can also say that the Islamic Defenders Front [FPI] is one of the sects as sometimes they are against correct Islamic teachings,” said Rohadi Abdul Fatah, the ministry’s director of Islam and Shariah law.

Speaking to the Jakarta Globe, Rohadi also identified the sects of Islam Katolojo, Darmo Bandul, Islam Kejawen, Muhammad Nabirasulillah and the Ahmadiyah as being problematic.

Tangerang Police on Tuesday said they had questioned the leader of Perguruan Cakrabuana and two of its followers for allegedly violating the 1965 Law on the Prevention of Blasphemy and Abuse of Religion for its interpretation and teaching of the Koran.

The blasphemy law is outmoded, according to some liberal Islamic scholars, and is currently being challenged in the Constitutional Court for curtailing religious freedom.

The FPI infamously ambushed a peaceful rally organized by the National Alliance for the Freedom of Faith and Religion in support of the Ahmadiyah at the National Monument in Central Jakarta in late 2008.

FPI chairman Habib Rizieq was later sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in the attack, although the government later issued a joint ministerial decree ordering the Ahmadiyah, a peaceful Islamic group founded in the late 19th Century, to restrict its religious activities.

FPI deputy secretary Soleh Mahdmud said anyone who labeled the FPI as antagonistic to Islam did not understand the organization.

“For us, they are people who have no brains,” Soleh said. “I believe the person must be someone who has liberal views saying that all religions are good and all people will go to heaven.”

Soleh said FPI members loved Islam and Shariah law and spread their message in a kind and gentle way.

“But of course it’s different in a struggle,” he added.

He also said that those who wanted polygamy outlawed were against Islam, whereas the FPI’s support of plural marriage was consistent with the faith.

Rohadi, speaking generally, conceded there was little the ministry could do to control sects because many of them were in existence long before independence and any attempts to disband them could lead to chaos.

He urged all religious groups to not take the law into their own hands lest that lead to violence. “If society is annoyed by such sects, they should report them to the police,” Rohadi said.

Rohadi said the ministry believed the blasphemy law remained valid. “The law will prevent people from establishing new religions in the country,” he said. “The country will be destroyed if it’s easy for people to establish a new religion.”

He said that the country only recognized Ahlisunnah Waljamaah as the right path to Islam.

“Ahlisunnah Waljammah means that we only follow the Koran and the Sunnah [sayings from the Prophet Muhammad],” he said, adding that the ministry would work with the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) to ensure people followed the “right path.”

Slamet Effendy Yusuf, head of interreligious harmony at the MUI, said current economic pressures could encourage people to join sects.

“Many people do not understand their religion perfectly in the middle of economic and social problems,” Slamet said. “They easily follow a sect as they are seeking spiritual support, something to calm their hearts because they are dissatisfied.”

He said this created new problems as the sects upset other groups, though he warned that it was better to adopt a persuasive approach rather than resort to violence.

“Islam is a religion that upholds peace. We should be able to talk to them, have regular meetings and educate them.” Nurfika Osman

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/blasph...buses-activists/361433

Blasphemy Law Leads to Human Rights Abuses: Activists

---Jakarta Globe, Indonesia

March 01, 2010 - Nivell Rayda

Blasphemy Law Leads to Human Rights Abuses: Activists

Liberal religious and human rights activists on Monday called on the government to overturn the 1965 law on blasphemy and replace it with one that better protected freedom of religion.

Dawam Raharjo, president director of the Religious and Philosophical Study Institute (LSAF), said the law, which is being reviewed by the Constitutional Court, paved the way for serious human rights abuses and allowed minority religious groups to be persecuted.

“There is no alternative but to annul the law. The government should replace the law with one that actually protects religious freedom,” he said. “The law only provides the opportunity and legal basis for mainstream religious groups to intimidate minorities.”

Dawam said police were reluctant to protect religious minorities because of the law.

“The majority of intimidation cases end up with the arrests of the minority followers while the attackers are protected,” he said. “There is little protection for citizens to practice their beliefs.”

Hendardi, chairman of the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, a human rights group, said his organization had uncovered hundreds of cases of abuse of religious minorities.

“These range from burning and destroying places of worship and banning minorities from practicing their beliefs to acts of violence and threats [against individuals],” he said.

“The 1945 Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and belief, yet these rights are neglected and unenforced. Meanwhile, there are people who are forced to practice their religion in secrecy out of fear of intimidation.”

Last Friday, New York-based Human Rights Watch wrote to US President Barrack Obama, urging him to make human rights issues, including the blasphemy law, key discussion points during his visit to Indonesia from March 20-22.

The group questioned the Indonesian government’s commitment to religious freedom because it continued to defend the antiquated blasphemy law.

The minister of religious affairs, Suryadharma Ali, and the minister of justice and human rights, Patrialis Akbar, both from conservative Muslim parties, the United Development Party (PPP) and National Mandate Party (PAN), respectively, have condemned the court’s review.

They have insisted that the law “ensured freedom of religion,” and argued that changing it would “create horizontal conflicts.”

“It is the government’s prerogative to say that,” Hendardi said. “But our data suggests otherwise — that the law inhibits freedom of religion.”

The law recognizes only six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. Other religions are officially banned.

The law also prohibits alternative interpretations of recognized religions, particularly Islam.

In 2008, the government used the law to formally ban Ahmadiyah, a minority Islamic sect, because it held that its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was the last prophet of Islam, a claim that contradicts mainstream Muslim beliefs.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/blasp...-rights-abuses-activists/361433