Indo Pak United Methodist Church

[Anthony]

Inimportant respects,Indonesia is rightly touted for its religious diversity and tolerance. SincePresident Suharto was forced to step down in 1998, after more than threedecades in power, inaugurating an era of greater freedom in Indonesia,viewpoints long repressed have emerged into the open. A strong thread ofreligious militancy is among them. As detailed in this report, the governmenthas not responded decisively when that intolerance is expressed through acts ofharassment, intimidation, and violence, which often affect freedom ofexpression and association, creating a climate in which more such attacks canbe expected.

According to theJakarta-based Setara Institute, which monitors religious freedom in Indonesia,there were 216 cases of violent attacks on religious minorities in 2010, 244cases in 2011, and 264 cases in 2012.[1]The Wahid Institute, another Jakarta-based monitoring group, documented 92violations of religious freedom and 184 incidents of religious intolerance in2011, up from 64 violations and 134 incidents of intolerance in 2010.[2]

More decisive leadership is urgently needed. Human RightsWatch supports the call for President Yudhoyono to work with parliament todevise and implement a national strategy on religious tolerance and religiousfreedom.[3]The effort should be led by an independent national taskforce composed ofexperts and politically influential individuals committed to religious freedomand not beholden to the existing Ministry of Religious Affairs hierarchy. Thetask force should be given a strong mandate and the resources necessary toproduce a plan of action. Key elements of such a plan of action should include:

Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims (Majelis Syuro Muslim in Indonesia), a coalition of Muslim groups set up during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia during World War II. It was banned by Sukarno in August 1960.

A traditionalist Sunni Islam organization, established in 1926 in Jombang, East Java. It claims to have 45-50 million members, making it the largest Muslim social organization in the world. It has hundreds of Islamic boarding schools mostly in Java but also on other islands.

This report is based on research between August 2011 andDecember 2012. Human Rights Watch researchers conducted interviews in 10provinces, on the islands of Java, Madura, Sumatra, and Timor. Sites werechosen based on areas where incidents of violence against religious minoritieshad been reported in the media or by civil society organizations.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 115 individuals during thecourse of the research. They included 71 victims of violence. They belonged to14 Protestant congregations, 4 Ahmadiyah congregations, 2 Shia groups, 2Catholic groups, and a Sunni Muslim mosque.

We also spoke with 26 religious leaders, 7 police officers,5 leaders of militant groups, 5 private lawyers, and a prosecutor. Interviewswere also conducted with experts at the Indonesian Conference on Religions andPeace, the International Crisis Group, the Setara Institute, the WahidInstitute in Jakarta, and the Legal Aid Institute in Padang.

Interviews were conducted in English, Indonesian, Javanese,Madurese, and Sundanese. Individual interviews and group interviews wereconducted in the native language of the interviewee. Where necessary,translation from Indonesian to English or from Sundanese to Indonesian wasundertaken with the assistance of an interpreter. Interviews consisted ofseries of open-ended questions.

Human Rights Watch researchers also analyzed multiplesecondary sources including more than 3,000 pages of government letters, courtdocuments, police reports, photos and NGO reports. All interviews werevoluntary and interviewees were informed of the purpose of the interview, andthe way in which the data would be used. Individuals who are named in thisreport gave their consent. All teenagers who were victims of violence and someadult victims have had their names withheld in the report due to securityconcerns. Interviewees did not receive any material compensation. All documentscited in the report are publicly available or on file with Human Rights Watch.

A failed coup against President Sukarno in September 1965claimed the lives of six army generals, but it was the army, led by then-MajorGeneral Suharto, that emerged as the paramount power in the aftermath. Althoughthe events surrounding the coup attempt remain unclear and some participantsthemselves described it as an internal military affair, the governmentmaintained that the Indonesian Communist Party was exclusively responsible forthe coup attempt. From 1965 to 1967, then GeneralSuhartopresided over a bloodbath of leftists and suspected sympathizers, generatingwidespread fear in Java, Bali, Sumatra, Kalimantan, and other parts of thecountry. Estimates of the number of people killed range from 78,000 to morearound 3 million.[15]

Political parties withIslamist affiliations did not, as might have been expected, gain from thedestruction of the atheistic Indonesian Communist Party. Instead, Suhartomaintained close control over them, pressuring Muslim-based parties to merge intoa single group called the United Development Party (Partai PersatuanPembangunan, PPP) which he kept on a short leash. This changed in the latteryears of his rule, with Suharto alternately repressing and cultivating Islamicorganizations as a political force, the state increasingly identified withobservant Islam. The latter development was exemplified by the state-sponsoredformation of ICMI (Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim Indonesia, Indonesian Associationof Muslim Intellectuals) in 1991 led by Indonesian technology minister B.J.Habibie.

In November 1967, the Suharto regime organized aninter-faith conference in Makassar to address tensions between Muslims andChristians. At the conference, Muslim organizations asked Christian churchesnot to proselytize or build new churches in Muslim-majority areas. Christianleaders rejected the proposal and the conference ended without an agreement. InSeptember 1969, Minister of Religious Affairs Mohammad Dahlan and Minister ofHome Affairs Amir Machmud issued a decree that empowered local officials topermit or prevent new houses of worship.[17]

The Suharto administration on several occasions usedunnecessary deadly force against Islamist activists. In September 1984, themilitary gunned down protesters in Tanjung Priok seaport area in Jakarta. Theyhad been protesting the arrest of four Muslim activists over a dispute with asoldier who had entered their mosque wearing shoes. In February 1989, afteryoung Darul Islam militants led an uprising and killed two military officers,the military attacked a village in Talangsari, southern Sumatra, killing dozensof Islamist activists and arresting and prosecuting at least 94 others.[18]

In the post-Suharto era,Islamists, like other groups, have also used the expanded democratic space topublicize and promote their ideas. Populist and often militant Islamist groupshave significantly grown in strength. They include the FPI, created in August1998, three months after Suharto stepped down, with support from governmentsecurity agencies as a means to challenge student groups that played a key rolein pressuring Suharto to resign.

Since Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took office in December 2004,there has been an increase in violence targeting Ahmadiyah, Christians, Shia,and other religious minorities, as the data from the Setara Institute, citedabove, demonstrates. More than 430 churches have been attacked since 2004,according to the Communion of Churches in Indonesia.[22]Attacks against Ahmadiyah mosques increased markedly since Yudhoyonocapitulated to pressure from hardline Islamist groups and issued ananti-Ahmadiyah decree in June 2008. At least 30 Ahmadiyah mosques have beenforced to close since then.

Although four post-Suharto presidents have made progress intransforming Indonesia into a rights-respecting democracy, they have also facedserious challenges from militant Islamists. Those challenges include bombings,deadly assaults on the Ahmadiyah community, and the closing down of Christianchurches. While Islamist groups have carried out the attacks, the failure ofthe authorities at the local and national levels to take serious action againstthose responsible has created a climate in Indonesia in which members of minorityreligious communities have much to fear. For that, the government from thepresident on down remains responsible.

Indonesia has a total population of 238 million people,according to the 2010 census. The country is spread over a far-flungarchipelago of more than 17,000 islands that is home to more than 1000linguistic groups, based largely on ethnicity. Approximately 88 percentself-identify as Muslim, 9.3 percent as Christian, 1.8 percent as Hindu, 0.6 percent as Buddhist, and the restas followers of various smaller religions.[23] Whilethere is tremendous diversity among those who identify as Muslim, it is notsurprising that Islam is a key reference point in discussions of Indonesianpolitics and society.

The Muhammadiyah, established in 1912 in Yogyakarta, is areformist Muslim movement, which from the start set up schools and hospitalsand worked to purify the teaching of Islam from pre-Islamic, Hindu- orBuddhist-influenced practices. It is the second largest Muslim organization inIndonesia.[28]

The Muhammadiyah and the NU have had inconsistent approachestoward religious minorities. On the one hand, prominent individuals in bothorganizations have tried to oppose discriminatory measures against religiousminorities.[30] In2008, a group of such individuals tried to stop the government from issuing theanti-Ahmadiyah decree, signing a petition published in the Kompasnewspaper. In 2009 several petitioned the Constitutional Court to revoke theblasphemy law.

On the other hand, neither the NU nor Muhammadiyahorganizations officially opposed the 2008 anti-Ahmadiyah decree. Even thoughboth officially oppose the use of violence against Ahmadiyah, their silence onthe decree is said to have been influential in its passage.[31]In East Java, the NU has supported banning Shia Islam.[32]And both the NU and Muhammadiyah are represented in the conservative IndonesianUlama Council (MUI), which advises the government regarding policies onreligion. Some of their leaders signed an MUI fatwa to ban the Ahmadiyah.

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