Local govts ‘main actors’ in faith attacks

HEADLINES Tue, 07/27/2010 8:57 AM

Local govts ‘main actors’ in faith attacks

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The trend of employing violent means to suppress the religious freedom of minority groups is escalating, with local governments acting as the greatest violator, a report shows.

The research, carried out by the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, shows there were 28 attacks on Christian churches between January and July this year. The figure is higher than 2009’s year-end total of 18 cases and 2008’s 17 attacks.

According to Setara deputy chairman Bonar Tigor Naipospos, the trend was troublesome because it reflected a continuing trend of violations against the constitutional and human rights of certain citizens.

“It’s true that no congregation members were hospitalized from being beaten up. But isn’t intimidation, the banning of houses of worship, and the sealing of churches by government a form of violence?” The sealing of churches and the refusal to grant building permits top the list of major violations.

The forceful closure of churches, the burning of churches and obstruction of services are next, with three cases each.

As an example, Bekasi administration sealed the Filadelfia Batak Protestant church in January after protests from hard-line religious groups contested the absence of the church’s building permit. Church officials said they had obeyed all the government’s requirements.

A 2006 joint ministerial decree outlines requirements needed to build a house of worship, including obtaining signatures from congregations and residents living nearby, as well as approval from the local administration.

The research supports the finding that name local administrations, organizations and citizens as the main violators, with 12, 10 and five cases attributed to each.

“The puritan and radical Islamic movement is strong in West Java,” Bonar said. “Sixteen cases were seen in Jakarta’s satellite cities of Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi and even in Karawang.”

Political motives, economic interests involving illegal extortion, and ideological clashes of “intolerant groups” refusing the presence of those with different religion mired most cases, he added.

“The local administration sees these groups as assets for local elections,” he said. “They bow to pressure from mass organizations that insist the churches’ presence and activities have caused unrest.”

Bonar said churches in Jakarta mainly faced trouble in renovating and expanding their buildings, which require building permits.

“They have to start over again by obtaining 60 signatures from residents living around the church and sometimes residents refuse to provide signatures,” he said.

Bonar urged the government to take legal action against violent groups as a deterrent for future cases.

However, the government has remained unresponsive to intolerant groups who violate the Constitution.

“We have a hesitant President. He is too busy maintaining his image,” he said. “It’s time to show a strong and definite leadership that would decide the political future of the country.”

The report recommends President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono review the 2006 joint ministerial decree and facilitate the establishment of houses of worship that have suffered rejections from local administrations and society.

A Catholic priest from the Indonesian Bishops Council, Father Beni Susetyo, said the problem lay in regional administrations’ inconsistency and lack of commitment to complying with regulations on the establishment of houses of worship.

“We are witnessing the politics of negligence, which makes people feel discrimination has taken place because the Constitution grants everyone the right to practice religions. If [local] administrations can be intimidated by those who commit violence, this country is doomed,” he said. (gzl)

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/07/27/local-gov...-attacks.html

Local residents nix sharia-based bylaws

Headlines Thu, 07/01/2010 7:51 AM

Local residents nix sharia-based bylaws

Hasyim Widhiarto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Residents, politicians, activists — and at least one actor — in Depok and Tangerang urged their cities to reject sharia-based bylaws.

Implementation of such regulations will make the regions prone to inter-religious conflicts, agreed several residents and activists.

The Depok municipal administration must seek approval from both the Muslim majority and local minorities if they want to implement sharia-based bylaws or policies in the city, said Mangaranap Sinaga, the coordinator of the Depok-based Inter-religious Youth Forum.

“All residents, especially minorities, need assurances that such bylaws will guarantee their rights to religious freedom and also give no leeway for [Muslims] hard-liners to outlaw the existence of the country’s beneficial laws,” Mangaranap told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Mangaranap said it was also important for the city’s moderate religious organizations to unite and support each other so that they could take a strong position when discussing sharia with hard-line organizations and local political elites.

“Dialogue alone is not enough, sometimes we also need to be more political,” he said.

The forum, which was launched earlier this month, gathered six religious-based organizations in Depok to discuss and respond to threats to pluralism in the city.

The organizations include Nahdlatul Ulama’s Ansor Youth Movement, Indonesian Christian Youth Force Movement, Catholic Youth, Buddhist Youth Generation, Persada Hindu Dharma and Konghucu Youth Generation.

Actor-cum-politician Derry Dradjat, who wants to run for deputy mayor in Depok’s next election, said there was no urgent need to implement sharia-based bylaws in the city.

“Instead of creating a new conflict, why don’t we just refer to the existing laws,” he said.

Depok, a city on Jakarta’s southern border, is currently governed by Nurmahmudi Ismail, who was supported by the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) in 2005.

Nurmahmudi has faced strong criticism from many non-Muslim residents who claim that they have been unable to obtain permits to build churches under his administration.

The mayor has been criticized for allowing hard-line organizations, such as the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) to pressure minorities, such as members of the Ahmadiyah sect and the transgender community.

In 2006, the Depok city council planned to deliberate a draft ordinance banning prostitution but has made no progress after several years.

Implementation of sharia-based bylaws started even earlier in neighboring Tangerang,

A number of women have been arrested when returning home from work after authorities began enforcing a 2005 bylaw banning prostitution in the city. Human rights activists have called for the bylaw to be revised.

Immanuel Malirafin, 43, a Catholic living in Kotabumi, said that although he heard of the bylaw, he never learned about it in detail.

“Some of my Muslims neighbors told me that the bylaw imposed a curfew on women, but I never understood why it was implemented,” he said.

Sharia bylaws are only allowed only in Aceh province, as a conditions of its special autonomy following a 2005 international agreement that ended decades of war.

After the introduction of regional autonomy in 1999, bylaws regulating private conduct and morality have sprouted in dozens of regencies and municipalities in the coutnry.

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/07/01/local-residents-nix-shariabased-bylaws.html

Indonesia: Govt urged to respect Ahmadiyah rights

---The Jakarta Post, Indonesia

National | Thu, 10/15/2009 11:59 AM

Govt urged to respect Ahmadiyah rights

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A series of attacks on followers of the Ahmadiyah religious sect has once again drawn criticism, with an expert in religion and democracy urging the government to exercise its authority when there are violations of human rights.

Alfred C. Stepan, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion at Columbia University in New York, said on the sidelines of a discussion held Tuesday that while the government must keep a principal distance, the separation did not mean the state should never get involved in religious matters.

“They should think more about whether there are circumstances in which they have to act quickly because I think it is the government’s responsibility if people’s rights are in peril,” he said.

Followers of the Ahmadiyah group are deemed heretics by mainstream Muslims for recognizing sect founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as the last prophet.

Islamic teachings maintain that the Prophet Muhammad is the last prophet.

The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) issued an edict officially declaring Ahmadiyah to be a heretical sect.

For years, followers of the religious sect have suffered attacks from various Muslim groups. Some of the attacks, which involved hard-line Muslims, resulted in the fire-bombing of Ahmadiyah mosques and houses.

Stepan said the attacks were violations of human rights and therefore the government’s intervention was needed.

“It is the duty of a democratic government to protect its people’s rights even if they have to act against some people’s freedom,” he said.

Although such measures should not go against the constitution, he said.

In the discussion, Stepan also said that Indonesia was a place where democracy and religions coexisted.

Indonesia, he noted, recognized and respected all the major religions, except Judaism.

“India and Senegal are also examples of democracies that recognize and financially support all religions, but keep some principal distance that would allow the state at times to interfere in the religion *if there were human rights violations*,” he added.

However, he said, the Indonesian government had shown much less willingness to exercise the principal distance than the other two countries.

“That may be a problem,” he added.

Stepan said that in all democracies, tolerance on the state’s part and the religions’ part were needed. Stepan terms the concept “twin tolerations”.

For democracy to function, he said, democratically elected governments must tolerate citizens’ legitimate aspirations, “as long as they do not hurt other people”.

“In pure democratic theory, any group that doesn’t violate other people’s rights has the right to articulate some of their ideas in civil society,” he said.

At the same time, religious hard-liners cannot reject the sovereignty of an elected government; instead forcing religious rules on the populace.

“That’s too great a restriction on democracy,” he said.

Theoretically, twin tolerations would allow religion to act in the area of the civil society, he said.

But, “the twin tolerations could also break down if someone violates it from the other side, if this happens the government must have some role in it,” he added.

Stepan also said that fundamentalism does not necessarily not pose an obstacle to democracy.

He added his research in India showed the greater the intensity of religious practice, the greater the intensity of support for democracy.

There are about 200,000 practicing Ahmadis in Indonesia. (adh)

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/10/...madiyah-rights.html

Indonesia: Alliance plans to propose review of blasphemy law

---The Jakarta Post, Indonesia

National Sat, 09/26/2009 12:06 PM

Alliance plans to propose review of blasphemy law

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The National Alliance for the Freedom of Religion and Faith (AKKBB) has planned to file a request with the Constitutional Court to review the 1965 blasphemy law which they say is discriminatory and against the amended 1945 Constitution that guarantees freedom of religion in the country.

The alliance comprising of, among others, the Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace (ICRP), Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta), the Wahid Institute and the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) said the law had raised a public outcry and triggered sectarian conflicts as people were required to accept only the six official religions - Islam, Catholic, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Kong Hu Chu - and those with different faiths were branded heretics.

“We are in the process of completing the necessary documents to be given to the Constitutional Court,” AKKBB coordinator Anick Hamim Tohari said here last week.

The 1965 law on the prevention of religion abuse and blasphemy stipulates that no one is allowed make interpretations deviating from the official religions’ teachings. Anick, executive director of ICRP too, said the alliance had formed a small team who was still preparing the judicial review proposal and supporting documentation.

Febi Yonesta of the LBH Jakarta said the official request for the judicial review would be filed as soon as the documents were complete.

Ahmadiyah and Lia Eden were two Muslim communities that have been rejected because their teaching and doctrine were different to what has been designated official Islamic teaching and doctrine. Many mosques belonging to the two communities have been burned down and their followers displaced from their villages in the West Java regencies of Bogor, Sukabumi and Kuningan, and Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara.

Ahmadiyah is a religious sect whose teachings are claimed to be heretical by the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and who have been attacked by various Muslim groups. Last year, the government made the decision that Ahmadiyah members were allowed to perform their religious activities but banned them from proselytizing new believers. The decision was made based on the law on religious blasphemy.

Lia Eden is a sect leader who has been sentenced to prison for religious blasphemy. “The law is the foundation of article 156 of the Criminal Code Law which criminalizes many religious minorities. Lia Eden has been charged under this article.

“Our constitution guarantees religious freedom. All religious groups deserve equal treatment. Therefore, this law which gives the government the power to intervene in religious matters must be annulled,” Anick said, referring to the 2008 joint ministerial decree barring Ahmadiyah from disseminating its teaching.

Febi said the Alliance had been planning to ask for the judicial review since 2005. “However, we had many considerations to take into account which postponed the plan.” He said in 2005, the situation was very tense and many groups were showing great resentment against religious sects. “We do not want to raise controversies and conflicts. We want the Constitutional Court to be able to decide on the review with a clear conscience. We do not want any political pressure to affect the legal process,” he said.

He said in the past, a believer of an unofficial religion must declare themselves a believer of one of the official religions in the religion section of his or her identity card. “However, the 2006 administration law allows them not to fill in the religion column,” Febi said.

“We hope if the 1965 law is annulled, all laws and regulations which take reference from this law will be applied without discriminating against any religious group,” said Feby.

Anick said the alliance’s top priority was to annul the terminology of official religions.

“Other laws and regulations, such as the marriage law, the population administration law, the joint ministerial decree which regulates houses of worship building permits also took the official religions from this law,” he said, adding that, to be consistent with the decree, the state did not recognize marriages between believers of different faiths. (mrs)

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/09/26/allia...-law.html