2011 Yet Another Bad Year for Human Rights: Setara

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2011 Yet Another Bad Year for Human Rights: Setara

Ulma Haryanto | December 06, 2011

Only a handful of those involved in the attack on a small Ahmadiyah community in Cikeusik, Banten, were charged, and they only received prison sentences of just a few months. An Ahmadi survivor who almost had his hand hacked off, though, was charged with provoking the attack and sentenced to six months in prison, half a month longer than his attacker. (JG Photo)

The year 2011 has been yet another period of abject failure by the government to protect human rights, according to the results of a survey released on Monday.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos, deputy chairman of the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy, said the survey of leading rights activists, community and religious leaders and bureaucrats showed no improvement in the state’s efforts to protect rights.

“There has been no significant change or effort from the government to uphold human rights compared to the previous year,” he said.

“The survey used a similar approach as last year. The Setara Institute grouped the variables in eight categories and measured how these items were perceived by our 71 respondents.”

Bonar said the category respondents rated the lowest was the resolution of past human rights violations, which received a score of 1.4 on a scale from 0 to 7. Last year’s worst-performing category, the perception of religious freedom, improved from a score of 1.0 to 2.3, while elimination of discrimination dropped from 4.0 to 2.8.

“Even though the score for religious freedom improved, one item in that group that still received a low score was the handling of cases of violence against minority groups,” said Ismail Hasani, a researcher at the Setara Institute.

He said that this year the worst of those incidents was the attack by a mob of 1,500 on a small Ahmadiyah community in Cikeusik, Banten province. That attack, in February, led to the deaths of three members of the beleaguered sect.

Only a handful of the perpetrators were charged, and wound up receiving prison sentences of just a few months. An Ahmadi survivor who almost had his hand hacked off, though, was charged with provoking the attack and sentenced to six months in prison, half a month longer than his attacker.

Hendardi, the Setara Institute chairman, called on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to “construct policies that uphold human rights through the resolution of past human rights abuses, end impunity and provide legislation enabling the enforcement of human rights.”

“Compared to previous presidents, Yudhoyono has the strongest political backing because he was directly elected by the people,” he added.

“So there’s no excuse for him for not to uphold human rights.”

Researchers said that on the positive side, survey respondents were more satisfied with the performance of state bodies such as the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), the Indonesian Commission for Child Protection (KPAI), and the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas Ham).

“Komnas Perempuan received the highest score, with a 3.7, while the KPAI got 3.6 and Komnas HAM got 3.4,” Ismail said.

“Another government initiative that received a higher score was terrorism eradication.”

The survey questioned 71 respondents across 13 provinces in the country. It was carried out in September and October and focused on items in international covenants on human rights.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/2011-yet-another.../482919

The Thinker: Open or Closed?

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The Thinker: Open or Closed?

Elaine Pearson | November 18, 2011

“Now we are vilified,” an Ahmadiyah imam told me last week at a mosque outside Jakarta that is threatened with closure. This is not the Indonesia that US President Barack Obama described last year on his visit to Jakarta, when he said, “Even as this land of my youth has changed in so many ways, those things that I learned to love about Indonesia — that spirit of tolerance that is written into your Constitution, symbolized in mosques and churches and temples standing alongside each other, that spirit that’s embodied in your people — that still lives on.”

In Bali this week, Obama should urge President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to protect the rights of religious minorities and take urgent steps to protect religious freedom.

Religious tolerance in Indonesia is in danger. There has been a surge in deadly sectarian attacks against religious communities and dozens of mosques and churches have been forced to close. In the first nine months of 2011, the Setara Institute, which monitors religious freedom in Indonesia, documented 184 incidents of religious violence — a higher rate than the annual average of 204 such attacks over the last four years. About 80 percent of these attacks took place on Java, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim, and targeted Christians, Shia Muslims, Bahai, and the Ahmadiyah, who consider themselves Muslim but whom many Muslims consider heretics.

As Obama said, religious freedom is protected under the nation’s Constitution. But as freedom of expression in Indonesia has grown since the fall of Suharto in 1998, so has intolerance and violence. Instead of protecting minorities, the government has promoted and enforced discrimination.

The Ahmadiyah mosque I visited last week in the Jakarta suburb of Bekasi is facing increasing pressure to close. The imam told me: “We’ve been here for 22 years. We have never faced these problems before. We are a part of this community.” The imam showed me threatening SMS messages warning him of violence if the mosque doesn’t close.

Indonesia’s national Ahmadiyah association, Jemaat Ahmadiyah, estimates that at least 30 Ahmadiyah mosques have been closed in recent years. In 2008 the national government passed a decree that prohibits the Ahmadiyah from practicing their faith. So far 16 provinces and regencies have followed suit, issuing local decrees banning the Ahmadiyah.

On Oct. 13, the mayor of Bekasi issued a decree banning all “Ahmadiyah activities” in the city. The exact meaning of “activities” is unclear, but every Friday since then the local Muslim clerical council, police and the military have gone to the community center to urge the Ahmadiyah to stop their religious services.

Attacks against the Ahmadiyah have gotten increasingly violent because perpetrators know sectarian violence is not seriously prosecuted in Indonesia. In a deadly attack in February, a 1,500-strong mob of Islamist militants beat three Ahmadiyah men to death and seriously injured five others in the village of Cikeusik, Banten. Although the brutal violence was captured on film, only 12 of the attackers were tried and they received prison sentences of just three to six months. The prosecutors claimed the Ahmadiyah provoked the attack and sentenced one victim who nearly lost an arm to six months in prison for assault and disobeying police orders.

The Ahmadiyah are not the only victims. This year, militants have burned down Christian churches in Temanggung, Central Java, and a suicide bomber targeted a church in Solo, killing himself and wounding 14 churchgoers. Churches in Riau were burned down in August and now, perhaps in retaliation, a mosque in predominantly Christian West Timor is facing similar pressure to close.

The upsurge in religious violence and the lack of state protection is akin to what happened in Pakistan, where the Ahmadiyah faced systematic and legalized persecution. This played into the hands of the Taliban and other militant sectarian groups. Now fewer and fewer voices in Pakistan are willing to speak up for religious minorities because they themselves wind up targets of deadly attacks.

Given Obama’s words on religious tolerance during his last visit, ignoring the growing religious violence now would show he is out of touch with reality in Indonesia. The United States has an interest in a stable, democratic Indonesia, and that demands a country that respects religious freedom. Urging Yudhoyono to speak out against religious intolerance and to seek a repeal of laws that inflame sectarian violence and discrimination should be at the top of Obama’s agenda.

Elaine Pearson is deputy director of the Asia Division at Human Rights Watch.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/the-thinker-open-or-closed/479189

Human Rights Watch Calls on Obama to Tackle Indonesian Abuses

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Human Rights Watch Calls on Obama to Tackle Indonesian Abuses

November 16, 2011

Armed soldiers patroling the Nusa Dua beach front area on Indonesia’s holiday island of Bali on Wednesday. The 16 leaders and heads of state of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and East Asia Summit participants are gathering in Nusa Dua’s convention and resort enclave for this week’s annual meeting where world leaders from US, Russia, China, India and Japan will be attending. (AFP Photo)

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday urged United States President Barack Obama to tackle Indonesia’s leaders during his visit this week on issues including outbreaks of mob violence against religious minorities.

The New York-based watchdog said that despite warming ties with Indonesia, Obama should be forthright when he meets President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during this week’s East Asia Summit held on the resort island of Bali.

Local and international human rights groups have expressed outrage over light sentences handed out to members of a religious lynch mob who killed three members of the Ahmadiyah minority sect in February.

The same court on Java island in August jailed one of the Ahmadiyah survivors of the attack, a man who almost lost his hand in the violence, for six months for defending himself and his friends.

“The Obama administration’s deepening relationship with Indonesia means being frank about Indonesia’s serious human rights challenges,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“Indonesian government indifference to mob violence against religious groups and brutality by soldiers against peaceful protesters are good places to start,” she said in a statement.

Pearson called on Obama to push Yudhoyono to end discriminatory laws and protect religious minorities in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

“Obama needs to temper his past praise of religious tolerance in Indonesia with some tough talk on religious freedom,” she added.

Indonesia’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion but rights groups say violence against minorities including Christians and the Ahmadiyah Islamic sect has escalated since 2008.

In February, a 1,500-strong mob of Muslims set two churches alight and ransacked a third in the town of Temanggung, on Java island, as they demanded that a Christian man be sentenced to death for insulting Islam.

More than 80 percent of Indonesia’s estimated 240 million people are Muslim. Five percent are Protestants and three percent Catholic.

Human Rights Watch said Obama must address “the lack of accountability of security forces for continuing abuses” as well as the 90 prisoners in the restive provinces of Papua and Maluku jailed for peaceful political activity.

“Obama should point out that as long as soldiers who commit torture get a few months in jail while peaceful activists get sentenced for years, Papuans are unlikely to have faith in Indonesian rule,” Pearson said.

Jakarta has faced a low-level insurgency in Papua ever since its 1969 takeover of the vast, mineral-rich territory which borders Papua New Guinea and has its own ethnically distinct population.

Washington and Jakarta have reinforced ties in recent years, signing new trade agreements and strengthening military and anti-terror cooperation.

Agence France-Presse

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/...indonesian-abuses/478849

Hard-Line Group Lashes Out At Bekasi Ahmadis

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Hard-Line Group Lashes Out At Bekasi Ahmadis

Ulma Haryanto | November 15, 2011

More than 30 people claiming to be from the notorious Islamic Defenders Front besieged an Ahmadiyah mosque in the Jatibening area of Bekasi on Monday, demanding it be sealed off.

Local Ahmadiyah leader Rahmat Rahmadijaya told the Jakarta Globe that the group tried to place a placard in front of the mosque to make clear that Ahmadis were not allowed to worship.

“It happened around 2 p.m., about 30 people entered the mosque. They wanted to hang up a placard stating that Ahmadiyah is banned, based on the Joint Ministerial Decree, a West Java gubernatorial decree and a decree by the Bekasi mayor,” Rahmat said, referring to the activists.

Human rights groups have blamed the 2008 joint ministerial decree for increasing violence against followers of the minority Muslim sect.

The Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy said the number of attacks rose from three in 2006 to 50 in 2010.

Earlier this year, West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan issued a decree banning the sect from spreading its beliefs through any media and forbidding the display of its name in public, including signposts on mosques. A similar decree was signed by Bekasi’s acting mayor, Rahmat Effendi, and went into effect last month.

The Ahmadiyah mosque had faced weekly threats from the local Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) branch and had to hold its Friday prayers under protection from Bekasi Police. There are around 200 Ahmadis in the area.

Bekasi Police Chief Sr. Comr. Priyo Widyanto denied there had been a siege.

“It is a lie. The truth is that the Bekasi municipality was only trying to hang a placard in front of their mosque, banning Ahmadiyah,” Priyo said, adding that the event was also witnessed by officials from the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), the Inter-Religious Communication Forum (FKUB) and the FPI.

The police chief of Pondok Gede district, Sr. Comr. Burhanuddin, said police were aware of hard-line Muslim groups’ opposition to the presence of Ahmadis and had “secured” the area.

Firdaus Mubarik, a spokesman for the Indonesian Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI), said the Bekasi anti-Ahmadiyah decree could be used by hard-line groups to legitimize their harassment.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/...bekasi-ahmadis/478494

Debate Over Indonesian Religion Bill Heats Up

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Debate Over Indonesian Religion Bill Heats Up

Ulma Haryanto & Anita Rachman | October 24, 2011

Rahmat Rahmadijaya, an Ahmadiyah leader living in Jatibening, Bekasi, has been anxious for a few weeks now.

At first he didn’t want to talk, but he later changed his mind. “If I speak out, maybe I can get people to support us, to pray for us,” he told the Jakarta Globe in a recent interview.

He is anxious because of a decree signed by Bekasi’s acting mayor, Rahmat Effendi, that bans the Muslim minority group from conducting activities that may be interpreted as an effort to spread its beliefs.

The ban went into effect on Oct. 13. Since then, Rahmat and other members of the Ahmadiyah community in his neighborhood have started holding Friday prayers under tight security from Bekasi Police.

“Our second Friday prayers went relatively normally, about 60 people joined in,” said another resident, Abdul Rohim.

“We don’t know about next week, though.”

In Need of a Law?

The fear appears to be justified. Several violent incidents have targeted Ahmadiyah communities throughout the country.

One of the worst — an attack in February by a mob of at least a thousand on an Ahmadi group in Cikeusik that left three members of the sect dead — spurred a discussion over a long-delayed bill on religious harmony.

At the time, the bill was presented by lawmakers as a long-term solution to the religious conflicts plaguing the country and to give a stronger legal basis to joint ministerial decrees that regulate religious matters in the country today.

Last week, Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Agung Laksono, Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali and Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi reiterated their endorsement of the bill.

“We need a regulation that contains both conflict prevention and solutions to the problems obstructing religious harmony,” Agung said.

The current draft of the bill regulates various religious rights and obligations such as proselytizing, celebrating religious holidays, constructing places of worship, funerals and religious education.

“The original version of the draft, written by the staff of the Religious Affairs Ministry, dated back to 2003,” said Ismail Hasani, a researcher at Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy. “The current draft is more or less the same.”

The bill is part of the 2011 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas), or the list of priority bills for the year, but it has been delayed as the House of Representatives has turned its attention to other bills.

Will It Help?

Setara deputy chairman Bonar Tigor Naipospos, an advocate of pluralism, isn’t looking forward to the religious harmony bill being passed into law.

He said it would only legitimize existing discriminatory regulations within the 1965 Anti-Blasphemy Law and a 2006 joint ministerial decree on places of worship, which has contributed to a number of conflicts.

In Bogor, for instance, Mayor Diani Budiarto has used the ministerial decree to continue to defy a Supreme Court ruling ordering the reopening of the GKI Yasmin Church.

The 2006 joint ministerial decree requires 60 signatures from local residents in support of the construction of a place of worship, but the mayor has claimed that GKI Yasmin forged the signatures.

The tension in Bogor came to a head two weeks ago, when churchgoers and public order officers (Satpol PP) clashed in front of the sealed building.

West Java Police are now investigating complaints filed by both camps against each other. A Satpol PP chief is accusing GKI Yasmin churchgoers of hitting him in the jaw and knocking him unconscious, while the church is countersuing Satpol PP for disrupting its service.

Bonar said the bill would be unhelpful to the cause of the Ahmadiyah as well. “The spirit of the law that condemns their belief, the 1965 Anti-Blasphemy Law, is still incorporated in the bill,” he said.

Fears and Worries

Abdul Kadir Karding, chairman of House Commission VIII, which oversees social affairs, urged the public to think positively about what the lawmakers in the commission were doing.

He said the House wanted to give protection to minorities.

“For instance, when there is a non-Muslim person living in a Muslim community, he or she has the right to use the same public cemetery like the majority,” he said. “In the Cikeusik case, we want this future law to ensure that the guilty will get punished.”

Activists were outraged that most of the 12 people convicted in the Cikeusik attack were sentenced to just six months in jail — the same sentence given to one of the Ahmadi victims convicted of violent assault and disobeying police officers who had ordered him and about a dozen other Ahmadis to evacuate ahead of the attack.

Karding acknowledges that unless the bill is carefully constructed, it risks becoming a tool for “hard-line groups to limit freedom of religion.”

Fajar Riza Ul Haq, executive director of the Maarif Institute, asked the House to be more open in the drafting and deliberation.

He said it should learn from the recently passed Intelligence Law, when both the House and government ignored public criticism.

One critical point, he said, was how the House would define “harmony” in the bill. “They should have drafted a religious freedom bill instead of this one.”

Harmony vs Freedom

Harmony, for instance, could be used to justify the recently issued Bekasi ban on the Ahmadiyah’s activities, which states the ban is needed to “preserve and maintain the stability of conduciveness and security, peace and order in Bekasi.”

Bonar views the religious harmony bill as the “middle way” after the Constitutional Court rejected a judicial review of the 1965 Anti-Blasphemy Law.

“Because even though the court rejected the request because the law itself is not unconstitutional, it stated in its ruling that a revision or an update of the law was needed,” Bonar said.

“Principally, we can’t agree with the law since it reflects the fact that this government thinks religious harmony is something that should be engineered, rather than grow naturally.”

If the government really wanted “harmony,” Fajar said it should start addressing the prevalence of hate speech.

In Jatibening, just before the ban on the Ahmadiyah was issued, members of the notorious hard-line group Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) were in the area.

“They came to Jatibening and intimidated people, telling us to shut down our mosque about three weeks ago,” Rahmat said.

Additional reporting by Vento Saudale

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/debate-over...up/473591

We’re not safe living anywhere: Ahmadis

CITYSat, 10/22/2011 12:37 PM

We’re not safe living anywhere: Ahmadis

The Jakarta Post, Bekasi

The imam of the Al-Misbah Ahmadiyah mosque in Jatibening, Bekasi, recently called on members not to congregate for Friday prayers for safety reasons following an official ban on Ahmadiyah religious practices in Bekasi.

Rahmat Rahmadijaya, the imam, said, “It’s up to them if they want to pray here anyway. I won’t send them home,” he said, adding that about 50 of the 200 registered followers were regulars at the mosque.

However, dozens of Ahmadiyah members still went to the mosque on Friday — a week after the Bekasi municipality officially banned the sect — and conducted Friday prayers under police guard.

“[Intimidation] makes us stronger. Members are even more determined to go to the mosque,” Vera, a member, told The Jakarta Post.

Congregation members later left the mosque peacefully after the weekly service concluded.

The Bekasi municipality ruled last week that the decree banning Ahmadiyah religious practices had been passed in order to meet the demands of local people.

The Ahmadiyah are not considered a Muslim group by mainstream Muslims, as the sect’s teachings are considered to deviate from mainstream Islam.

However, residents of Jatibening told the Post that there had never been any conflict between Ahmadiyah members, who mostly live outside the housing complex, and them.

Hartinah, who has lived in the neighborhood since before the mosque was built in the 1980s, said there had been no problems between Ahmadiyah followers and residents.

“As a child, I, along with neighbors, often joined Koran recitations or breaking of the fast events at the mosque. They are friendly and have never forced us to follow their beliefs, so we have no problems with their presence,” she said.

Hartinah said that people had started to leave the mosque following the spike in reports of violence against Ahmadiyah members throughout the country.

“I’m not sure who is right, but the presence of vigilante group members around here scares me more,” Hartinah said.

Imam Rahmat said that after the Bekasi decree issuance, he had been intensively communicating with the police. “When there are rumors that certain groups will come, the police deploy officers to guard the mosque,” he said.

Ahmadiyah members have not been holding regular events other than weekly Friday prayers and sermons.

Firdaus Mubarik, public relations officer of the Ahmadiyah Indonesia Congregation, told the Post that the organization had stopped holding national events after thousands attacked the Ahmadiyah Indonesia Congregation in Parung, Bogor, in 2005.

“We are no longer safe anywhere in Indonesia,” Firdaus said.

Concerning the appointment of Nasaruddin Umar as the religious affairs deputy minister tasked with “eliminating possible religious conflicts” during the recent Cabinet reshuffle, Mubarik said he was pessimistic that it would have any impact on the Ahmadis.

“As far as I know, Nasaruddin was involved in the drafting of the 2008 joint ministerial decree banning Ahmadiyah religious practices. Besides, [the problem solving] is not in the hands of ministers, but of the President [Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono],” he said.

Firdaus pointed out that the incidence of violence against Ahmadis had increased and worsen during Yudhoyono’s leadership.

“Before Yudhoyono came to power, the eviction of 300 Ahmadis living in Lombok [West Nusa Tenggara] in 2002 was the biggest tragedy for us. During Yudhoyono’s leadership, we’ve seen worse and even lost several members, who were killed during the incidents,” Firdaus said. (swd)

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/10/22/we-re...ahmadis.html

Ahmadiyah officially banned [by Bekasi municipality]

HEADLINESFri, 10/14/2011 6:54 AM

Ahmadiyah officially banned [by Bekasi municipality]

Hans David Tampubolon, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Bekasi municipality has officially banned the religious practice of the Ahmadiyah sect on Thursday, a move pluralists deemed as the legitimation of a violation of the spirit of the Constitution.

The head of the Bekasi Agency for State Unity, Politics and Community Protection, Agus Dharma, said that the issuance of the decree banning Ahmadiyah’s religious practices was passed in order to meet the demands of local people.

“Ahmadiyah activity has caused unrest among Bekasi residents. [The decree was] issued to prevent conflicts resulting from different beliefs among local residents,” Agus said.

The decree was signed by acting Bekasi mayor Rahmat Effendi, and involved all city institutions contained under the Regional Consultative Council (Muspida).

The decree accentuated a 2008 joint ministerial decree, and an Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) edict from 2005, demanding Ahmadiyah be disbanded because it was heretic and blasphemous.

There are around 200 Ahmadiyah followers in Bekasi, according to the city administration.

Commenting on this latest development in Bekasi, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Usman Hamid said it was time for all civilians to rise up and conduct forms of civil disobedience in protest against a government that has legitimazed a discriminative regulation that basically violated the spirit of the Constitution, which guarantees people’s religious freedoms and rights.

“Civil disobedience is not intended as a violation of the law but as a [peaceful] protest. The law, right now, no longer represents the rights of minorities,” Usman told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Usman also said that the Bekasi administration’s move was a sign that the values of democracy in the country have faded away.

“The main pillars of democracy are equal citizenship and human rights. Without them, there can be no democracy. Democracy does not stop with the ballot box.”

Separately, Ahmadiyah spokesman Mubarik said that the nation’s legal system had done little to support minorities.

“The most horrific example is the fact that the murderers of three Ahmadiyah followers have not been brought to trial until now,” Mubarik said, in referring to an incident that occurred earlier this year when three Ahmadiyah followers were brutally murdered by a mob of fundamentalists in Cikeusik, Banten.

Mubarik, however, stressed that for the time being, Ahmadiyah followers would comply with the Bekasi decree, banning their activities.

“Our compliance does not mean that we are not going to fight back.

We will fight for our rights through our legal representatives, who have submitted a judicial review to the Supreme Court on every discriminative decree and regulation issued in the country,” he said.

“It will be a long fight. But people need to realize that Ahmadiyah followers are basically free citizens. Their right to freedom [of religion] must not be curtailed. Any decree or regulation that curtails citizens’ rights is a violation of the Constitution and, therefore, for the sake of the law, such decrees and regulations must be annulled,” he added.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/...banned.html

Minority Religions Pray For End to Discrimination

Minority Religions Pray For End to Discrimination

By Kanis Dursin

BEKASI, Indonesia, Nov 8, 2010 (IPS) - Clutching bibles and song leaflets, members of a Protestant church flocked into a one-storey building here, situated next to a new shopping mall on one of the busiest streets in this municipality in Indonesia’s West Java province.

The mood among the congregation of the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (HKBP) church was subdued, devoid of talk and laughter typical of the ethnic Batak people when they greet each other. Crammed in absolute silence in the small hall, hundreds of Christians faced a small brown cross that hung on the wall.

“You may cover the (Sunday) service, but please no interviews with congregation members as the situation is still dangerous,” a leader of the church told IPS, pleading not to be identified.

Outside, dozens of armed plainclothes and uniformed police officers kept watch on people coming close to the building. “At least 30 police personnel are deployed here every Sunday since HKBP started holding their service in the building,” said a police officer on duty.

HKBP moved to its current government-designated on Sept. 26 after a group of local Muslims beat up HKBP pastor Rev Luspida Simanjutak and stabbed her assistant, Hasian Lumbantoruan Sihombing, in the stomach while the two were on their way to Sunday service on Sep. 12.

The HKBP incident, which was widely reported in local media, is the latest in a series of religion-related animosity and violence in Indonesia, raising some concerns over the space for religious freedom in the world’s largest Muslim country.

But Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has repeatedly called for greater tolerance among followers of different religious groups in this Muslim-majority South- east Asian country.

Said Aqil Siraj, chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation with some 40 million members, said it is unlikely the attacks on minority groups were religiously motivated.

Instead, he said, they are more reflective of social and economic tensions in society. The attackers were “economically poor and marginalised in the ever-widening economic gap between the poor and the rich,” he explained.

“What happened (to HKBP) in Bekasi was pure unfairness,” Said explained. “The developer moved a mosque out of the housing complex and Muslims there accepted it as the new mosque was big and nice. But when they learned that a house inside the (old) complex had been converted into a church, they became so angry.”

Since then, Simanjutak said, local authorities have sealed off the residential house for violating a building regulation that prohibits its use for any other purpose other than its original function. HKBP can now only hold its Sunday service in the new, heavily guarded location, although other activities, including Sunday school, are still held at the sealed house.

“The number of churchgoers and Sunday school students has dropped significantly,” said Simanjutak, who claimed the church had around 1,500 followers, including 300 Sunday school students, in Bekasi Timur alone.

“Since its birth, Indonesia has always been a pluralistic country and those who wish to turn the country into an Islamic state are just being nostalgic (of past Islamic civilisation),“ Said said.

“Pancasila is a done deal, and Nahdlatul Ulama would continue to promote pluralistic values,” he said, referring to the Indonesian state ideology that promotes pluralism and secularism.

According to Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, there were at least 28 cases of violence against Christians – who account for some 10 percent of Indonesia’s 240 million population – from January to July 2010 alone, compared to 18 throughout 2009, and 17 in 2008.

But other minority religions, too, have had their share of worries.

A group of Muslims in Parung, West Java, burned down a mosque owned by the Islamic sect Ahmadiyah in October 2010, along with five houses and several vehicles belonging to sect members. At least another 17 houses were destroyed and looted, forcing members of the minority sect to evacuate.

Local authorities have also ordered Buddhist leaders in Tanjung Balai of Indonesia’s northern Sumatra province to remove a six-metre high statue from Tri Ratna – the town’s only Buddhist temple, with some 2,000 followers – after receiving complaints that the statue did not reflect Islamic values and may hurt social harmony.

“Weak law enforcement by police officers against those involved in destroying places of worships has only encouraged more religious violence in the country,” lamented Hendardi, chairman of Setara Institute.

Experts say suspects are often let off the hook or get only light sentences. While police have named 10 suspects in the HKBP Bekasi case, no trial date has yet been set. Among these suspects are a leader of the radical Islamic Defenders Front, which has also been blamed for attacks on numerous entertainment centres in the capital Jakarta and surrounding towns.

According to Hendardi, radicals also exploit a joint decree issued in 2006 by the home affairs and religious affairs ministries, which stipulates that any religious group proposing a new place of worship must first secure written consent in the form of signatures from residents, before applying for a construction permit from the government.

Human rights activists want this regulation revoked, saying that it is discriminatory to minority religious communities. (END)

URL: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53482

In defense of Islam, vigilante justice in Indonesia

Indonesia Home / Asia / Indonesia

In defense of Islam, vigilante justice in Indonesia

Indonesian government sits idly by as Islamic Defender's Front, called thugs by most, runs amok.

By Sara Schonhardt — Special to GlobalPost
Published: August 23, 2010 06:44 ET in Asia

Indonesian Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab gestures as he delivers a speech to his supporters inside the court room after his trial in Jakarta on Oct. 30, 2008. (Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images)

JAKARTA, Indonesia — They call themselves the Islamic Defenders Front and they say their mission is to stamp out sinful acts and to protect the poor and marginalized.

But the majority of Indonesians in this moderate Muslim nation call them thugs. They say the FPI, as they are known here, are tarnishing the image of both Islam and Indonesia.

In only the last few months the group has been accused of attacking churches, raiding suspected communist conferences and waging assaults against minority religions.

A showdown took place in the Jakarta suburb of Bekasi earlier this month when a stick-wielding mob of FPI members attacked and beat around 20 members of the Batak Christian Protestant Church.

And through it all, Indonesia’s secular government has largely stood idly by and, in some cases, offered support. In most cases the country’s leaders have remained silent, even as FPI attacks grow increasingly frequent and increasingly violent.

The FPI argues that the Batak congregation is worshipping without the proper government permits and is threatening Muslim society by proselytizing.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos, vice chairman of the Setara Institute, which works to promote democracy and peace, said the FPI is using the threat of Christianization to strengthen their position, to gain sympathy and spread their ideology to their followers.

According to a recent study by the institute, acts of violence against Christians are on the rise, which could signal that religious tensions, which always seem to be simmering in Indonesia, are coming to a boil.

“Some politicians in the West use Indonesia as a model of moderate Islam, but behind the surface the embryo of intolerance still exists,” Naipospos said. “And if the Indonesian government doesn’t do something, this embryo will get stronger.”

During an Islamic congress in June, FPI leader Habib Rizieq said evangelicals were Christianizing Muslims by offering them social services like free health care and education. They were also performing hypnosis and constructing illegal churches, he said.

Murhali Barda, the leader of the FPI’s Bekasi branch, had been preparing for a clash.

“My Muslim brothers…!!! Come to Ciketing..!!” He wrote on his Facebook page the day before the attack. “Help our brothers that were walked all over by the Batak people … church business people, moneylenders, pig and dog eaters!”

Angry tweets began trending on Twitter after news of the attack broke, just one among many in recent weeks. Forced church closures and protests against community activity, such as the butchering of pigs, have also made recent headlines.

The occasion forced Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to break his silence on FPI’s attacks. The president, however, said only that anarchic behavior would not be permitted during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

“But it is permitted,” said Sidney Jones, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, which monitors security issues. “The easiest thing would be to arrest the perpetrators, and it’s not clear to me why they have refrained from doing so.”

In 2008, following an assault on a peaceful rally in support of religious freedom, police did arrest nearly 60 FPI members, including Rizieq. The FPI kingpin was later sentenced to 18 months in prison for helping organize the attack against the supporters of Ahmadiyah, an Islamic sect many conservative Muslims consider heretical since they refuse to accept Mohammad as Islam’s final prophet.

But the arrests were mostly a response to public outrage. And while the government stopped short of completely banning the Ahmadis as the FPI had demanded, it did issue a ministerial decree prohibiting Ahmadis from practicing their faith or proselytizing in public, appearing to again side with religious hardliners instead of religious pluralists.

Jones said it was unacceptable that the Indonesian police and military have stood by and let these attacks continue. Individuals in the FPI should be prosecuted for assault, but the police should also be held responsible, she said.

Both Jakarta’s governor and one of its police chiefs attended the FPI’s 12th-anniversary celebration earlier this month in what is thought to have been an attempt to enlist the group’s material, and perhaps political, support.

And even though the Religious Affairs Ministry in March named the FPI among nearly 70 potentially illegal sects because its actions deviated from the country’s accepted Islamic teachings, the government still took no action against the group.

Started with police and military backing in 1998, the FPI was originally part of a group of street-level militias aimed at countering the student-led, democratic reform movement and providing security to then-president B.J. Habibie. The FPI has since gained notoriety for conducting vigilante crackdowns on “un-Islamic” activities, which, before recently, usually only involved aggressive raids on bars and nightclubs during Ramadan.

FPI members say their actions are not antagonistic to Islam and that they are merely upholding their duty to rid society of sin.

“FPI has one mission and one vision, and that is to eliminate tyranny and to enforce truth and justice,” said H. Chep Hernawan, head of the Islamic Reform Movement. “Our ulemas [Muslim scholars] and Muslim warriors are the ones who fought against the colonizers. So, I think it’s normal if we want to enforce Islamic law.”

The FPI are not religious crusaders, however. Ian Wilson, a researcher of radical groups-cum-gangs at Australia’s Murdock University, said its members frame issues in religious terms but are not on the same page ideologically as Islamic terrorist organizations like Jemaah Islamiyah.

“Their whole rationale is to stir up trouble … to be in the public eye,” he said.

Barda, who wears a wrap-around skirt and white skullcap often associated with conservative Islam, said FPI’s activities in Bekasi are based on the wishes of the community, which it works to coordinate and strengthen against people who might pose threats, namely the Christian Batak, an ethnic group originally from the neighboring island of Sumatra.

For more than a month the Batak congregation has been praying in a field in Ciketing, on the outskirts of Jakarta, where demonstrators meet them each Sunday demanding they cease prayers and leave the area.

Christian groups must have the consent of the surrounding community to establish a place of worship, and the hardliners say they are fighting the Batak because they refuse to abide by the law.

But when asked about rumors of declining membership numbers among the FPI, Barda, who likes speaking in idioms, only laughed. He said all he needs to do is produce a magnet and the nails will come to him.

“We are small, but we have many supporters,” he said.

Copyright 2010 GlobalPost — International News

URL: www.globalpost.com/dispatch/indonesia/100822/fpi-islam-vigilante-justice

Indonesia and Religious Violence

August 11, 2010

Indonesia and Religious Violence

Arresting radicals like Abu Bakar Bashir is only half the battle.

Indonesia notched another big victory in the antiterror fight this week with the re-arrest of Abu Bakar Bashir, the al Qaeda-linked spiritual leader linked to the 2002 Bali bombings, as the Australian National University’s Greg Fealy explains on a nearby page. If only the country’s leaders would pursue Islamic vigilante groups just as aggressively.

Since Suharto fell in 1998, these thugs-for-hire have proliferated in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country. The most prominent, the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), yearns for a Shariah state, and has been fingered for burning down Christian churches; attacking the Ahmadiyya, a minority Muslim sect; and beating up peaceful NGO activists. The latest misadventure came Sunday when goons beat up 20 Christians in Bekasi, West Java. (FPI denies involvement.)

Far from distancing themselves from this kind of behavior, public figures have recently started to court the group. Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo and Police Chief Timur Pradopo attended FPI’s 12th anniversary celebration Saturday, giving the group a taste of political legitimacy. The governor even invited FPI into the capital to police Muslims’ behavior during Ramadan, which began on Wednesday.

Thankfully, the majority of Indonesians are moderate and perceive the real threat FPI presents to their way of life and precious civil liberties. Twitter groups, editorial pages and NGOs erupted in protest over the Jakarta governor’s invitation. FPI head Habib Rizieq was forced to back down and pledged to let the police enforce Ramadan laws.

That’s all to the good. But what happens the next time FPI hooks arms with the police and local politicians? President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has voiced “concern” over violence against minorities, as he did after Sunday’s attack, but has largely bowed to the police to enforce the rule of law. Parliament has made similar noises. The result? As the Wahid Institute has chronicled, attacks are creeping upward, to 60 incidents last year from 55 in 2008. And that doesn’t even count attempts to impose Shariah through legislation, which has proliferated in recent years.

This cycle won’t be broken until President Yudhoyono exerts some leadership. This could be tough for a president who has tried to court the hardline Muslim vote since he first took office in 2004, from freezing the activities of the Ahmadiyya to enacting a radical antipornography law that limits free speech.

But as Yenny Wahid, the daughter of former president and respected cleric Abdurrahman Wahid, told us earlier this week, groups like FPI “carry the banner of Islam; therefore they act with impunity.” Surely that makes the violent FPI just as dangerous as men like Mr. Bashir.

URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704...articleTabs%3Darticle

‘Police reform’ key to conflict management

HEADLINES Wed, 07/14/2010 9:14 AM

‘Police reform’ key to conflict management

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The police remain the key figure in handling increasing violence and horizontal conflicts, although in several cases they have done little to prevent such acts of violence from occurring, analysts say.

Samsu Rizal Panggabean, a security expert at Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada University said Tuesday that police reform was key to dealing with thuggery and various acts of violence in the country, especially as it would bring the police closer to the public.

He said this could be achieved through problem-oriented policing and community-oriented policing strategies, which formed the approach of community policing.

Such police-community partnerships, Samsu explained, had been successfully implemented in countries such as the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and India.

“In those countries, [the partnership] is applied to tackle local crimes and problems related to community relations, such as relations between majority and minority groups or between different religious groups,” Samsu said.

He cited India where police worked with local administrations and communities to tackle interreligious conflict through neighborhood peace committees.

“In Mumbai [India], for example, the police chief actively attends committee meetings and shares information with stakeholders to solve community problems,” he said.

Samsu added that the National Police had attempted to adopt community policing in several cities including Bekasi, Yogyakarta, Surakarta, Surabaya, Makassar and Manado, although there has been no evaluation on its implementation.

“Support from various elements of society will make the police more confident in enforcing the law and punishing violators.”

Samsu said in reference to a recent incident of violence by members of the hard-line Islam Defenders Front (FPI) that police had not received enough support from the public, including from other Islamic organizations, to take action against the group.

The recent months have seen a series of attacks by the FPI and clashes among religious and ethnic groups.

Last month, dozens of FPI members forcibly broke up a meeting in Banyuwangi, East Java, that was attended by legislators overseeing health affairs. The protesters alleged the meeting was a reunion for former members of the now-defunct and outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

Some Islamic groups in Bekasi also pushed to disband a church whose followers they accused of proselytizing. In Bogor, police under pressure from Islamic groups, closed down an Ahmadiyah house of worship.

University of Indonesia criminologist Eko Hariyanto said police had to take stern measures against acts of violence and bring the cases to court.

The police “tend to do nothing if there is any violence involving the masses,” he said.

Eko said fair law enforcement of all citizens was necessary to reinstate the supremacy of the law.

“The uncertainty [of law enforcement] is behind this repeated violence because some groups try to take advantage of the situation.”

He said various sanctions might not affect perpetrators of violence, especially those citing religious motives.

However, Eko added, it was important to prevent others from joining in or copying the acts of violence.

“We should break the circle of violence, as it potentially creates another [circle of violence],” he added.

Eko said once perpetrators were punished, they could be rehabilitated to address their beliefs that justified their violent actions. (lnd)

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/07/13/violence-feared-replace-community-dialogue.html