T

he US government has released a report saying that Indonesia has “failed” to stop the victimization of religious groups or bring the perpetrators of religious violence to justice.

The report, recently released by the US Embassy in Jakarta, highlighted incidents between July and December 2010.

“The government’s respect for religious freedom remained unchanged. The government prosecuted some individuals responsible for religion-related violence in Sulawesi and the Malukus,” the report said.

“However, it sometimes failed to prevent abuse and combat discrimination against religious groups by non-state actors, and at times failed to punish perpetrators of violence.”

The report also said the central government seemed to be oblivious of ordinances that limited the rights of minority groups under the Constitution.

“The central government holds authority over religious matters but made no effort in some regions to overturn local laws restricting rights otherwise provided for in the [Constitution],” it said.

“Members of minority religious groups continued to experience some official discrimination in the form of administrative difficulties, often in the context of civil registration of marriages and births and/or the issuance of identity cards.”

Quoting a leading NGO that was not identified, the report said there were more than 50 attacks against the minority Ahmadiyah Islamic sect in 2010 and more than 75 attacks against Christians.

Some hard-line Muslim groups used violence and intimidation to close several churches, some of which were unregistered with the government, it said. Some of the churches remained closed at the end of the reporting period.

It said the government has prosecuted only a few perpetrators for these and past abuses;, noting that Indonesia did prosecute the perpetrators in the case of a Christian pastor who was stabbed in September in Bekasi, West Java.

The report said discrimination happened not only to Ahmadiyah followers and Christians, but also to Muslims in regions where were a minority.

“Muslims reported occasional difficulties in establishing mosques in Muslim minority areas of Papua, North Sulawesi, and elsewhere,” it said.

Wahid Institute director Zannuba Arifah Chafsoh Wahid said the trend of discrimination against minority groups had continued to increase in the past few years.

“More perpetrators in discrimination are not only non-state actors, but also state actors, including those in the case of GKI Yasmin,” he told The Jakarta Post.

Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto has ignored a Supreme Court’s ruling that rejected the Bogor administration’s request to uphold its decision in closing the GKI Taman Yasmin Church.

The Foreign Ministry’s director for North and Central America affairs Bunyan Saptomo said that the government had no authority to interfere with the legal process involving perpetrators alleged to have taken part in violence against minority groups.

 “In principal, the government remains committed to protecting human rights and respecting religious freedom,” Bunyan said.