T

he Religious Affairs Ministry said Monday that a regulation requiring local consent to build a house of worship was needed maintain harmony — and would not be revised or revoked.

Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali said Monday that there would be no revision of the controversial joint ministerial regulation, which many agree discriminates against minority religious groups.

“Should we lose this regulation, people would be able to do anything they like, but that won’t be the case if we have guidance in place,” he added.

Under the regulation, which was signed by the Religious Affairs Ministry and Home Ministry in 2006, applicants hoping to build a place of worship must meet several special requirements, such as providing lists of 90 worshippers and 60 local supporters, a written recommendation from the regency or municipality religious office head and a written recommendation from the Inter-religious Forum.

Suryadharma said that the prerequisites were “moderate”.

Calls to amend the regulation resurfaced after an attack on HKBP church members on the way to religious services in Bekasi last week injured two church elders.

The chairman of Indonesia’s second largest Muslim organization, Muhammadiyah, Din Syamsuddin, said last week a revision was necessary to stop the regulation from being open to interpretation.

Natan Setiabudhi, the former chairman of the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI), said on Monday that not entire legislation was good and that the regulation had to be open to revision.

He said in practice, interfaith communication forums did not work as well as expected in every part of the country and in some areas had become a way for unscrupulous parties to reap financial benefits.

Critics of the regulation said that equivocating local administrations posed as big a challenge as did the joint ministerial regulation for minority religious groups to establish houses of worship.

Indonesian Bishops’ Council secretary Pastor Benny Susetyo recently said that one snag in setting up churches was regional administrations’ failure to completely understand the regulation, adding that the regulation was not meant to impede the establishment of places of worship.

He said growing intolerance at the grass roots level was a concern. “This is the problem we are currently facing, which has occurred due to the decline in people’s understanding of the ideology of the nation. Reform has gone too far, and people are losing their conception of a life that embraces pluralism and Pancasila,” he told The Jakarta Post.

On Monday, Amirsyah Tambunan from the Indonesian Ulema Council said the joint ministerial regulation was legal and not problematic as it was the product of a democratic decision making. “The problem does not lie in the regulation, but in its implementation,” he said.

He added that the consensus that allowed for the regulation to exist should be respected.
Justice and Human Rights Ministry research and development head Hafid Abbas said that the joint regulation was good enough to accommodate the needs of religious groups.

“The regulation cannot stand alone and we need to do is synchronize that with other regulations as well as universal values such as those fulfilling human rights standards,” he said. (lnd)