President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s annual state of the nation speech, which he delivered on Friday ahead of Indonesia’s 74^th Independence Day, covered wide-ranging topics including the development of human capital and the imminent relocation of the country’s capital city to Kalimantan.

However, several activists affiliated with local nongovernmental organizations have criticized the president for overlooking persistent issues that have long plagued the country, such as the rights of religious minorities and the re-evaluation of laws deemed prone to exploitation. 

“True independence [is achieved] when President Jokowi guarantees religious freedom for every citizen without exception, including members of the Filadelfia Congregation of Batak Protestant Churches [HKBP Filadelfia] and the Indonesian Christian Church [GKI] Yasmin,” religious freedom activist Judianto Simanjuntak wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday. 

Judianto, who served as a legal representative of HKBP Filadelfia amid mob attacks in 2012, published a Facebook post on Thursday in which he expressed his skepticism about whether Jokowi would bring up the issue of religious freedom in his annual speech. 

“Members of GKI Yasmin and HKBP Filadelfia have held services 199 times across from the Presidential Palace since 2012, but President Jokowi, as well as the Bogor mayor and the Bekasi regent, has yet to immediately resolve the issue,” he wrote in the post. 

Back in 2008, the Bogor city administration issued a decree freezing the GKI church's building permit in response to residents' opposition. 

HKBP Filadelfia faced a similar problem with the Bekasi administration sealing off the location on which their church was to be built in 2010. 

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