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Jakarta Post

State officials ‘behind’ many religious freedom violations

Human rights groups report criminalization, repressive regulations Government officials still play a large role in the oppression of religious freedom across the country, human rights groups have reported

Ivany Atina Arbi (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, September 12, 2019

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State officials ‘behind’ many religious freedom violations

Human rights groups report criminalization, repressive regulations

Government officials still play a large role in the oppression of religious freedom across the country, human rights groups have reported. 

According to the latest survey conducted by religious freedom watchdog Wahid Foundation, at least 130 religious freedom violation cases — out of a total of 276 cases found in 2018 —were committed by the authorities. The number had increased from 95 violations carried out by government officials the previous year from a total of 265 cases.

The largest violators were police personnel and local administration leaders, who were involved in 34 and 23 cases, respectively.

The form of violations varied, from imposing criminal punishment based on someone’s religion and limiting one’s religious activities to expressing hate speech against minorities.

One of the 48 cases categorized as “criminalization” of religious groups in the study involved a religious sect known as Kerajaan Ubur-Ubur (Jellyfish Kingdom) in Banten.

The police detained the sect’s leader, Aisyah Tusalamah Baiduri Intan, after receiving pressure from local residents, then named the 39-year-old a suspect for spreading hate speech on social media and charged her under Article 28 of the 2018 Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law.

“As a group of people with the same system of belief, the sect should have been protected by the authorities as long as it didn’t disturb public order,” said Wahid Foundation executive director Mujtaba Hamdi.

Another case of criminalization of religious minorities by authorities involved a Buddhist woman of Chinese descent, Meliana, who lived in Tanjungbalai, North Sumatra.

The Medan District Court declared her guilty of blasphemy under articles 156 and 156A of the Criminal Code and sentenced her to one and a half years in prison for complaining about the loud volume of adzan (call to prayer) blasted from the speakers of a mosque near her home.

Her remark, made in 2016, is believed to have triggered one of the worst incidences of sectarian violence in the regency, with Muslims who claimed to have been offended burning and ransacking dozens of Buddhist temples.

The police arrested 19 people for their role in the riot. Eight were charged with looting, nine with malicious destruction of property and two with inciting violence. They were sentenced to between one and four months in jail.

“What the state did in Meliana’s case shows that the criminalization of minorities, at the insistence of majorities, is preferred over legally processing the real perpetrators of vandalism,” the report said, adding that the authorities were supposed to stop the oppression of religious minority groups and promote respect and religious freedom. 

“It’s time for the state to [stop intervening in] the religious rights of its citizens.”

The report further revealed that a number of local administration leaders had forced “people to carry out certain religious rituals, wear certain religious attributes and recite [Quranic] scriptures”.

At least 22 regulations — in the form of circular letters and instruction letters — were issued across the country last year to accommodate the authorities’ wishes.

Palu Mayor Hidayat in Central Sulawesi, for example, issued Circulation Letter No. 450/2018 to call on all Muslim residents to stop their activities whenever they hear a call to prayer and then go to a nearby mosque to pray.

Palembang Mayor Harnojoyo in South Sumatra instructed all Muslim civil servants of the provincial capital to hold subuh (dawn) prayers together, as stipulated in Mayoral Regulation No. 69/2018.

Meanwhile, Aceh Besar Regent Mawardi Ali issued a letter in January last year to oblige female flight attendants from all airlines landing at Sultan Iskandar Muda International Airport to wear headscarves.

Rights group Setara Institute told The Jakarta Post that there were up to 200 more of these type of regulations.

“The only person who can take a comprehensive measure in addressing this issue is the President himself,” said Setara Institute research director Halili. “The President, in his second tenure, should be able to create a safe environment for everyone, especially minorities, in order to [unite] the nation.”

The institute found 202 religious freedom violations last year, 72 of which were committed by authorities while the remaining 130 were carried out by individuals or groups of people from various mass organizations, such as the United Islam Forum (FUIB) and the Islam Defenders Front (FPI).

They include interfering with religious minorities’ places of worship, of which 400 cases have been recorded in the past decade.

Christians living in predominantly Muslim communities experience the most violations, or nearly 200, from 2007 to 2018 through “antichurch movements”. In the same period, 133 cases were recorded of Muslims living in non-Muslim neighborhoods being prohibited from conducting religious activities, Setara Institute revealed, adding that the remaining violations happened to adherents of other minority groups, such as Buddhists and Hindus.

Both Wahid Foundation and Setara Institute argued that the interferences were due to, among other things, the “problematic” 2006 joint decree between the Home Ministry and the Religious Affairs Ministry, which regulates that the construction of a house of worship requires at least 90 signatures from congregation members and 60 residents.

The two requirements often make it hard for religious minority groups to build their houses of worship.

“We urge the government to revoke any discriminatory regulations, including the joint decree between the two ministries,” the Wahid Foundation said in its latest report.

It also urged the President and the government to focus on advocating for religious tolerance in the 2020-2024 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN).

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