Around 100 members of the GKI Taman Yasmin and HKBP Filadelfia congregations attend a Sunday service in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on October 12, 2014. Neither church has been able to obtain a building permit (Photo by Ryan Dagur)
Indonesia’s new president, Joko Widodo, must prioritize addressing religious intolerance by pursuing and prosecuting perpetrators, a rights watchdog is urging.
In a report launched Friday, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) contends that the Indonesian government has failed to protect religious minorities in the Muslim-majority country. This has effectively given a free pass to people who persecute minorities, according to Phelim Kine, HRW’s deputy director in Asia.
There has been a “steady increase” in violent incidents against religious minorities, including persecution against Ahmadiyya and Shia Muslims, as well as some Christian communities, Kine said.
“The government has absolutely failed to protect these people, to arrest perpetrators, and to ensure that it doesn’t happen again,” Kine told ucanews.com on Friday following a press conference to launch the Indonesia chapter of HRW’s yearly report on global rights.
The Indonesia report quotes statistics from the Jakarta-based Setara Institute, which counted 230 attacks on religious minorities in 2013 and 107 cases through November 2014. In almost all the documented cases, the alleged perpetrators came from the majority Sunni Islam community.
For example, the congregations of two prominent churches in West Java province continue to worship in private homes because they have been unable to obtain basic building permits for churches in their areas. This continued through the year, even though Indonesia’s Supreme Court had ordered local officials to issue the permits.
“So there’s discrimination, intolerance and violence. And that’s a complete failure by the government to address it,” Kine said, adding that the main factor of such a failure was the absolute unwillingness of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to confront Islamic fundamentalists.
Kine urged the country’s new president, Joko Widodo, who took office in October 2014, to turn the page on the previous government’s policies and to prioritize addressing religious intolerance.
“That starts with making sure that those who victimize religious minorities pay a price, that they are arrested and prosecuted,” he said. “Because right now, they get away with it.”
He also suggested that Widodo should look at religious intolerance and violence as a threat to the country’s stability. “If you want Indonesia to develop economically and socially, you want to have stability, which means you don’t want to have Islamist militants victimizing large communities of Ahmadiyya, Shia and Christians,” Kine said.
“You want to bring those negative violent forces under your heel and make sure everyone knows that this is a country of rule of law. Currently, for religious minorities, the law is of no use.”
Andreas Harsono, HRW’s Indonesia researcher, said the government’s apparent lack of understanding of the law has contributed to its failure to protect religious minorities.
He cited the case of GKI Taman Yasmin, one of the West Java churches whose congregants have been unable to obtain a local building permit.
“The government knows that there’s already been a Supreme Court decision, but they neglect it,” Harsono said.
National Police spokesman Rikwanto, who uses only one name, said it is the job of the police to ensure peace in local communities. However, he said, cases involving religion can be complicated by conflicting interests.
“If the root cause can be resolved, the police can work properly,” he said.
Rikwanto pointed out that members of the fundamentalist group Islamic Defenders Front, or FPI, are currently on trial for their alleged roles in recent violent protests against the protestant governor of Jakarta.