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span class="caption">Peaceful greetings: Yenny Wahid (center) from the Wahid Foundation attends the Centini Gunung art event in Mantran village, Magelang, Central Java, on Thursday. The cultural affair was part of celebrations for International Peace Day, which was marked during the Borobudur Writers and Cultural Festival.(JP/Tarko Sudiarno)

A small number of Indonesians who practice Judaism, some of whom have opted to keep their faith secret because of anti-Semitism, may soon be able to state their religion on their identity cards, as the government plans to provide a legal basis to protect the rights of the followers of almost all religions in the country.

A bill on the protection of religious followers, which is now being drafted by the Religious Affairs Ministry, aims to acknowledge about 250 native faiths and several existing minority religions in Indonesia, including Shintoism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism.

Indonesia does not ban Judaism or other minority faiths, but the existing legislation only recognizes six religions that are embraced by most Indonesians: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Confucianism. The 1965 Blasphemy Law does not explicitly state the six are “official” religions, but they are commonly referred to as such by government officials.

The 2006 Population Administration Law, for instance, stipulates that those whose religions have not been recognized by the state could leave the religion space on their identity cards blank. In practice, only followers of the six religions are allowed to have their faith written on their identity cards.

While Judaism has never been banned in Indonesia, that does not mean most of its followers can freely practice their religion since anti-Semitism persists in the country, fueled mainly by Indonesia’s stance against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the location of some of the holiest sites of Islam, which is professed by the majority of Indonesians.

The total number of Jewish people in Indonesia remains unknown, but media reports show that small groups of Jews reside in a number of regions in Indonesia, including in Bali, Jakarta, Surabaya in East Java and Minahasa regency in North Sulawesi.

“It is a fact that some of our citizens practice [Judaism], not only the six religions. The point is the government aims to acknowledge Indonesians along with their multiple religions in order to provide protection,” the ministry’s spokesman, Muharram Marzuki, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

The recognition of minority religions outside of the six religions in the bill will force the government to provide services for followers of minority religions, such as giving them access to public cemeteries and religious education at school, as well as health facilities.

Followers of minority religions and local faiths have difficulties getting access to public services because they do not have their religion printed on their ID cards.

“So far religious education at schools only serves followers of the six religions. This means that we must provide teachers [for followers of local faiths and minority religions] to teach religious classes at schools,” Muharram said.

In order to be acknowledged, local faiths must meet the criteria of a religion to be outlined in the bill. At a minimum, a religion must have followers, a scripture, a house of worship and a god, but the bill has yet to formulate a final definition of what makes a religion.

However, Judaism will not find any difficulties to be acknowledged because of its status as one of the Abrahamic religions along with Islam and Christianity.

Muharram said that although followers of local faiths and minority religions would have equal access to public services after the passing of the bill as followers of the six religions, they would still not be allowed to try to convert other people to their beliefs.

The ministry’s civil registry director Ani Yuliastini said that the religious followers protection bill, after being passed by the House, would later serve as a legal basis for the ministry to include religions outside of the six “official” religions on ID cards in the future.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo said that today only the six religions were allowed by law to be put on ID cards, but the statuses of followers of minority religions and local faiths were recorded in the ministry’s civil registry.

“If they want to challenge the [2006] law in the Constitutional Court, then go ahead,” Tjahjo said on Thursday.