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arman Gerfasius Purba, a follower of indigenous faith Ugomo Bangsa Batak (UBB) in Medan, North Sumatra, once had a dream of joining the Army.

Last year, Darman had to give up his dream after the Iskandar Muda Military Regional Command (Kodam), based in the predominantly Muslim province of Aceh where he enlisted to join the military, found out that he practiced a faith that was not recognized by the state.

Darman was one among many individuals who were subjected to discriminatory treatment due to their indigenous faiths, as mentioned in a report released by rights group Wahid Institute.

The report found that followers of four indigenous faiths continue to face harassment even after the government formally allowed members of non-denominational faiths to leave the religion column on their ID cards blank.

Followers of Javanese faith Sapto Darmo in Brebes regency, Central Java, could not bury the remains of their family members in public cemeteries after members of the community discovered that they failed to write in one of the six major faiths on their ID cards.

Meanwhile on Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara, people who practice Marapu, a local religion, are unable to register their marriages to the Civil Registration Agency and as a result their children have been denied birth certificates.

Some children of parents who subscribed to Marapu were told to join Christianity, the dominant faith in the region, and received a baptism certificate from local churches in order to register for elementary school.

In North Sumatra, followers of native faith Parmalim had a hard time finding jobs once their prospective employers found out about the blank space in the religion column on their identity cards.

Some members of the Parmalim religion failed to get ID cards because officials who handled their registration process refused to process their documents after finding out that they did not declare a religion.

Representatives of four indigenous faiths recently filed a petition to challenge the legality of Law No. 23/2006 on population administration, especially Articles 61 and 64 of the Constitutional Court (MK).

The groups demanded that the MK scrap the two articles, which mandated the practice of leaving the religion section of ID cards and family cards blank, deeming that the provision is a violation of the country’s constitutional principles of equality before the law, Law No. 39/1999 on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“In practice, officials discriminate against people who are members of indigenous faiths. In some regions, officials force citizens to fill in the religion column on their ID cards with one of the six official religions of Indonesia, Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism or Confucianism,” said Sekar Banjaran Aji, a lawyer representing the Civil Defender Team, a coalition of rights groups that campaign for the protection of minority groups in the country.

Data from rights group SATUNAMA, which is a member of the coalition, shows that as many as 40,000 Marapu followers, 1,500 people who practice Parmalim, 450 UBB members and 500 believers of Sedulur Sikep indigenous faith in Kudus regency, Central Java, were denied basic civil registry documents like ID cards, family IDs, birth certificates and marriage certificates.

“We recorded about 80,000 people who could not access public services that they are entitled to as citizens,” said Juwanto, an activist of SATUNAMA.

Responding to the grievances, the Home Ministry said followers of local faiths could get the same access to basic services and discrimination could be considered a violation of the 2006 Population Administration Law.

The ministry said people who practice indigenous religions could leave their religion column blank on ID cards, and they could still be recorded in the civil registry system. Relevant institutions, like the Army, could get access to information regarding the faiths of military members by checking the ministry’s database.

“We are waiting for the Religious Affairs Ministry to complete its work on collecting database information for native faiths once the Religious Followers Protection Law is endorsed by the House. Once the database is ready, we can put information about local faiths on people’s ID cards,” said the Ministry’s civil registry director Ani Yulistiani.