T

he government bears responsibility for the rise of religious intolerance across the archipelago over the past few years, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a UK-based organization that examines religious freedom.

'€œThe government, the President and ministers contribute to this situation,'€ said Benedict Rogers, while delivering a report entitled Indonesia: Pluralism in Peril, The Rise of Religious Intolerance across the Archipelago, in Yogyakarta on Tuesday.

The report cited President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono'€™s tendency to support the Indonesian Ulema Council'€™s (MUI) issuances of fatwas (legal edicts), as a contributing factor in the erosion of respect for pluralism in the country.

At an MUI congress in 2005, for instance, the President said that the MUI played an essential role in debating Islamic issues.

'€œSuch remarks offered conservative [Islam] a green light, and within days, a series of fatwas were issued that served to undermine notions of pluralism,'€ Rogers said.

The government, Rogers added, had issued additional rulings that provoked religious intolerance against minority groups.

Those rulings include a 2006 joint ministerial decree (SKB) regarding houses of worship, and a 2008 joint ministerial decree that bans the Ahmadiyah, a minority Islamic sect, from spreading its beliefs.

The report also criticized weak and unbalanced law enforcement practices. '€œThe most worrying development is the absence of the state in various acts of violence. This makes the police seem helpless [...] they [the police] even tended to let the violence occur right in front of them,'€ Rogers said.

He expressed concerns about a rising trend whereby in cases of religious intolerance, victims were often criminalized while perpetrators walked free.

'€œAccording to sources mentioned in the report, the radical groups are often backed by political elites and high-ranking police and military officers,'€ Rogers said.

'€œIf the government does nothing [about rising religious intolerance], Indonesia could follow the example of Pakistan, where religious violence is common,'€ he added.

Rogers, who authored a book entitled Burma: A Nation at the Crossroads, said that religious intolerance in Indonesia bore resemblances to the situation in Myanmar, as Burma is also known, where the government employed violence to suppress minorities, including Muslims and Christians.

Moreover, Rogers called on the presidential hopefuls to pay more attention to human rights issues in the country.

Meanwhile, Elga Sarapung, director of the Yogyakarta interfaith organization Dian/Interfidei, urged the government to seriously address the rising number of religious intolerance cases in Indonesia, saying that to not do so would risk tarnishing the nation'€™s image abroad.

'€œWe can no longer just believe that whether something is right or wrong, it'€™s '€˜still my country'€™,'€ Elga said.

She also aired hopes that the Yogyakarta Police would immediately act on the wave of religious intolerance in the province over the past month.

Yogyakarta, long regarded as a province of peace, has witnessed a sharp rise in incidents of religious intolerance.

On May 30 in Ngaglik, Sleman regency, dozens of people attacked the house of Galang Press director Julius Felicianus while a number of Catholics were inside praying.

On June 1, a group of residents, along with members of hard-line groups, vandalized a Pentecostal Church in Pangukan, Sleman, claiming that it had not obtained a permit. A few days later, a group of people demanded that the Isa Almasih Church in Ngentak cease holding church services.

Escalating tensions were heightened again on Sunday, when preacher Ja'€™far Umar Thalib told Muslims gathered at the Masjid Gedhe grand mosque in Kauman that it was time to declare war on pluralism.