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top official at the Religious Affairs Ministry claimed that attacks on religious minorities nationwide have been orchestrated by political elites and a small number of hard-liners and did not reflect rising intolerance.

The head of the Religious Affairs Ministry’s research and development division, Muhammad Machasin, told The Jakarta Post recently that based on a study conducted by the ministry the majority of Indonesian Muslims were tolerant.

“We have found that most of our people are in fact maintaining harmonious relationships with their neighbors. We’ve found that differences appear to be no problem among the people.

“However, such people-to-people harmonious ties have been torn into pieces by a number of people who apparently have been influenced.”

Machasin said that the ministry’s previous findings showed that the perpetrators of religious violence were mostly outsiders.

This, he argued, highlighted the “dirty moves” by certain groups and political leaders to abuse religion for their own benefit.

Machasin’s statement came at a time when Indonesia has been under the international spotlight for failing to protect minorities.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), for instance, issued a report accusing the government of complicity in cases of religious violence.

The government has snubbed the report, saying that foreign observers were wrong.

According to the ministry’s study, provinces in eastern Indonesia, such as East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) and North Sulawesi, were among the most tolerant; while Jambi in Sumatra was considered as the least tolerant of religious differences.

The study also said that NTT and North Sulawesi were heterogeneous communities with small migrant populations, making them more open to religious differences because local residents had a sense of community that could be mobilized to quickly counter threats, including those driven by religious sentiment.

Meanwhile, places with more homogeneous populations and a high number of migrants were more prone to religious conflicts orchestrated by religious figures or local leaders, Machasin said.

“We aim to promote more community-based programs that will strengthen people-to-people relationships in the belief that mature and strong relations among people will not be easily disrupted by incorrect teachings or discriminative bylaws,” Machasin said.

There was an urgent need to carry out such programs before the 2014 elections as religious sentiments might be manipulated by political parties, he added, calling on the government to enforce the law to minimize conflicts.

Machasin’s statement confirms claims made by victims of religious violence.

Rev. Palti Panjaitan from the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (HKBP) Filadelfia church, for example, said that attacks on the church had been carried out by people from outside the neighborhood because members of the church had had harmonious relations with their neighbors.

However, Palti said that the attacks got worsened when the government sided with the perpetrators by refusing to enforce the law.

“The government is also responsible for the rising attacks on religious minorities nationwide by omission,” Palti said.

The Setara Institute, a local NGO that monitors religious freedom, previously said that the number of attacks against religious minorities rose from 144 in 2011 to 264 in 2012.