The nine leaders, along with nine prominent activists on the environment, economy, society and human rights, said the government had told at least nine old lies and nine fresh ones.

Noted Islamic scholar Ahmad Syafii Maarif said the most embarrassing lie the government told its citizens was related to poverty.

“The government has repeated its claim on poverty eradication success, the latest figure stated 31 million live under the poverty line,” the leader told activists at the gathering hosted by Maarif Institute.

“But the same government said in 2010 that 70 million were eligible for the rice for low-income earners program, and 76.4 million were eligible for low-income earner health subsidy.”

“It claimed that 5.8 percent of economic growth was a success, yet, small people did not feel the benefits.”

The list of new lies includes President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s promise in his speech in August last year on upholding pluralism, tolerance and freedom of religion. The fact was in 2010 there were 33 attacks in the name of religion, the group said in the discussion titled “Fight against Government Lies”.

Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Indonesia’s second-largest Muslim organization Muhammadiyah, condemned the government as “not only lying, but not keeping promises”.

Senior Indonesian Buddhist monk Sri Pannyavaro Mahathera said that it was most dangerous if the leaders were lying and they did not feel it was wrong. He said he feared such lies eventually became a normalized mental attitude accepted by the public. “If the government makes no improvement, the fight against the lie will be in vain,” he said.

Chairman of the Communion of Indonesian Churches (PGI) Andreas Yewangoe said people often let depravity in the government occur.

He feared that at some point the public might embrace such lies, saying that one lie led to another, which at some point would be perceived and accepted as the truth. Hindu leader I Nyoman Udayana Sangging said that the reality did not fulfill the people’s expectation.

“Therefore, we are determined, according to each teaching of religion, that lies should not be maintained and truth must be disclosed,” he said.

Maarif added that, “If the government does not listen to the religious leaders who just like hermits come down the mountain to give moral lessons, then, who will the government listen to?”

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) deputy chairman Shalahuddin Wahid, head of the Indonesian Council of Bishops (KWI) Martinus Situmorang, Catholic priest Franz Magnis-Suseno and Catholic priest Benny Susetyo were among the nine religious leaders.

Among the activists were Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence coordinator Haris Azhar, Econit Advisory Group director Hendri Saparini and Migrant Care executive director Anis Hidayah.

Anis said among the President’s lies was his promise to equip migrant workers with mobile phones.

The nine old government lies according to the leaders and activists were on poverty statistics, food security and energy, access to basic needs, the fight against terrorism, human rights protection, education budget, adequate settlement for Lapindo mudflow victims, case handling on Newmont, which was accused of dumping untreated mine waste in to the sea, and Freeport’s unfulfilled contract renegotiation promised in 2006.

New ones include religious freedom and national unity, freedom of the press, protection of migrant workers, government transparency, the fight against corruption, the handling of polices’ dubious “piggy bank” accounts, clean politics, handling of the judiciary mafia case and the sovereignty of the Republic of Indonesia in relation to the arrest of three officers of the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry in Malaysia recently.

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