I

n the early days of President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo'€™s administration, we are seeing reassuring signs of state protection of all citizens. While the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono showed the world we were maturing in democracy, it also showed a leadership turning a blind eye to the persecution of minorities and even leaving lay Muslims worried that their faith and behavior was not '€œproperly Islamic'€.

Activists are alarmed that Jokowi is not appearing to meet their expectations, installing retired military officer Ryamizard Ryacudu, for instance, as defense minister, though he notoriously praised killers of a Papuan activist and has never hidden his hawkish attitude against rebels.

But the statements of Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin and Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo reflect early gestures to assure equal rights to freedom of worship.

Both have signaled protection of minorities would be among their priorities. Tjahjo, a long-time politician of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) that nominated Jokowi as a presidential candidate, said Wednesday he would summon regional leaders whose minority faiths continue to run into trouble.

As religious affairs minister briefly under Yudhoyono, Lukman had also reached out to minority faiths. He announced the Bahai as a state-sanctioned faith, though this means the policy of the state determining '€œproper'€ faiths is still effective.

Their gestures are early translations of Jokowi'€™s '€œvision and mission'€ '€” among other things, to correct state neglect regarding the respect and management '€œof diversity and differences which have become the Indonesian character as a plural nation'€.

Jokowi had campaigned that his programs included returning '€œthe state presence to protect and provide a sense of security to all citizens'€ '€” echoing a widespread feeling that anyone could be vulnerable while the police allowed the sealing of minorities'€™ places of worship and forced the evacuation of Ahmadis and Shiites, and if there was no recourse for followers of indigenous faiths to engage in legal marriages, and so on.

All this did not start under Yudhoyono. However it was Yudhoyono, the recipient of an American award for religious harmony, who merely said local leaders did not follow his instructions on maintaining harmony.

Even when Madurese villagers said they could accept their evacuated Shiite neighbors back, then religious affairs minister Suryadharma Ali said they first had to convert to mainstream Islam.

Ministers Lukman and Tjahjo surely know they will come up against vehement resistance if protecting minority faiths means changing the laws and regulations that have effectively made illegal the unsanctioned faiths including branches outside Indonesia'€™s '€œmainstream'€ Islam.

But now all eyes will be on whether the newcomers to government will end the persecution and even murder of fellow citizens, just because they are different. As Jakarta governor, it was Jokowi who showed the nation what a leader should do, when protesters heckled his appointed Christian subdistrict head.

The governor and his deputy Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama insisted Susan J. Zulkifli had passed the criteria for a subdistrict head; and now Ahok looks increasingly confident that being a Christian of Chinese descent will not prevent his installment as Jakarta governor.

Protection of minorities, however, would likely be the easy part of asserting '€œstate presence'€.

A further challenge is whether the government would continue to tolerate bylaws that the earlier administration nodded at, despite protests that they were discriminative.

Bylaws such as those regulating dress codes for Muslims and the obligation for students to be able to read the Koran before being allowed to continue studies to a higher level were allowed by Yudhoyono'€™s administration, saying they were within the authority of regional autonomy.

An extreme case is in Aceh where bylaws are based on authorities'€™ and politicians'€™ interpretation of sharia, in the only province allowed to refer to Islamic law following a peace agreement with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The National Commission for Violence against Women called on Wednesday for the annulment of Aceh'€™s criminal code, the qanun jinayat, saying it violates human rights guaranteed in the Constitution and in the 2005 Helsinki agreement.

For instance, rapists will walk free if they swear five times they did not commit the crime and state they will accept Allah'€™s punishment if they are lying.

It is too early to expect that Jokowi can change deeply rooted policies on religion and the state to better ensure protection and freedom of worship.

In 2010 the Constitutional Court rejected a judicial review request to annul the law on blasphemy; plaintiffs had said the 1965 law was no longer suitable as it was issued under a state of emergency.

However the court had said that in the absence of laws regulating blasphemy, the law should stay as further chaos could ensue without the state regulating the issue.

Debates on relations between religion and the state have been rare, amid today'€™s enthusiastic voices for the state to better represent the Muslim majority.

But if Jokowi and his ministers remain consistent, they would continue to stand by citizens'€™ constitutional rights.

When the president-elect earlier met with Chinese community group INTI, who asked that he protect minorities, Jokowi said he had already settled the issue of pluralism, despite resistance, for instance, to Susana and Ahok.

Jokowi may have been unaware that his hosts were anxious because no one has ever been persecuted for the May 1998 riots in which Chinese families, women and their property were specifically targeted.

Nevertheless it is a great relief to have a government that has signaled clear intentions to protect all citizens, meaning less tolerance for those justifying assaults against those who are different.