TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Letter: Protect right of minority religions
I would like to respond to a comment made by Chairul Bahri in the United States (The Jakarta Post, Sept
Change Size
I
would like to respond to a comment made by Chairul Bahri in the United States (The Jakarta Post, Sept. 29) on an article about a proposal to review a blasphemy law. There has been good progress on certain freedom issues, though it still needs further improvement, especially on several non-mainstream religious denominations that exist in Indonesia.
Take for example the Jehovah's Witnesses. The official activity of this Christian group was unjustifiably frozen from 1976 to 2001 "out of courtesy" of the pressure from "more mainstream" groups in Indonesia. This fact was sorely pathetic, despite their persistent defending of their own religious rights, against some fundamental Muslim elements that actually weren't pleased about the presence of many churches in this country.
My role as an observer has taken my specific attention to particular groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, because their normal existence in a country becomes an indicator of how well human rights are protected there.
The Indonesian people in general may think that the religious society that created the blasphemy law only comes from a certain group of Muslim clerics, but similar action was also followed by the surprisingly Christian churches here. I have to state that the Jehovah's Witnesses can do their activities legally in this country, so they are legal.
Even after the ban on the Jehovah's Witnesses was lifted in 2001, many groups are still developing uneasy feelings and bad intentions about putting the ban back, though this is denied by the highest Christian authorities in Indonesia. The group still experiences significant pressure against building projects for their own places of worship.
In the city of Tangerang, for example, they still find difficulties registering their place of worship. One of the barriers was during the registration process, when many local churches there sent letters of opposition to the Tangerang administration to deny the Jehovah's Witnesses an official permit to establish their "Kingdom Hall", adding to the "usual" opposition from the Muslim society, which already had uneasy feelings about Christianity in general. It really has disturbed the basic right of any religious group to worship legally and peacefully.
I wonder if the other churches realize they also face opposition in building their own places of worship. This fact becomes a fun and pathetic situation where eventually the minority fights against the passive minority just based on doctrinal differences. I myself am not a Jehovah's Witness.
You may wonder why I have paid greater attention to that. It is because their worshipers number almost 50,000. I believe it is so unreasonable to hold back the rights of that huge number of people. The number of people from the Church of Latter Day Saints and Baha'i faith are insignificant compared to the others, and the fact is there has never been an official, legal ban against them from the Indonesian government.
We surely look forward to the even treatment of all religious activities in this country without disruption. It is a very sad situation when churches in Indonesia still oppose basic human rights and valid law, though they don't do it apparently.
John Evans
Jakarta
