(Jakarta Globe) Religious Minister Lukman Promises Bill to Protect Religious Minorities

12/12/2018

The lone minister to survive the cut to President Joko Widodo’s cabinet from the previous administration has unveiled plans to draft a bill that would afford unprecedented protection to religious minority groups, continuing where he left off in his battle against rising religious intolerance.

“Over the next six months, we will work on this bill to protect all religious groups, including those outside the six main religions of Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism,” Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, the minister for religious affairs, said at a press conference in Jakarta on Wednesday.

“The bill will protect everyone’s religious right, especially the rights guaranteed by the Constitution,” he said. “First, the right to believe in whatever they choose to put their faith in. There should be a guarantee that everyone is free to choose their own religion or belief. Second, the independence for anyone to practice their belief.”

He added he hoped that “the bill can improve the quality of living in Indonesia.”

Lukman was inaugurated in June, in the twilight of the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration, following the naming of the previous minister, Suryadharma Ali, as a graft suspect. In the short time since then he has shown a more conciliatory stance than his predecessors on engaging with minority religious groups, including Shiite and Ahmadi Muslims — with whom he held an unprecedented breaking of the fast during Ramadan in July.

Suryadharma, by contrast, was known for his hostility toward these groups, including a public call for the Ahmadis to recant their “heretical” beliefs.

Lukman said the new bill would target the closures and attacks on churches and Shiite and Ahmadiyah mosques, one of the most egregious symptoms of the quasi-institutional discrimination of religious minorities stemming from the near-impossible administrative requirements laid out in a 2006 joint decree from the Religious Affairs Ministry and Home Affairs Ministry for congregations of any faith seeking a permit to build a house of worship.

“The bill will have many implications, including in terms of the permit to build places of worship,” the minister said. “There should be a clearer and stronger regulation for this issue. Of course we need suggestions from the public so we can accommodate their needs and interests.”

One of the requirements stipulated in the joint decree is for applicants to get the signed approval for their house of worship from the heads of 60 neighboring households of a different faith. In Muslim majority Indonesia, Christian, Shiite and Ahmadi applicants have almost invariably failed to get the required number, while a few cases have been reported in parts of eastern Indonesia, which has a large Christian population, of Muslims not being allowed to build mosques.

Lukman also promised to address the long-running issue of Shiite and Ahmadi communities being driven from their homes by mobs of Sunni Muslims — often with the support of the local police.

“It’s a complex problem,” he conceded. “It involves things related to officials like the police, issues with local governments, problems within the local community, and admittedly, problems related to religious beliefs.

“The steps taken should be integrated and not partial. We’re working on it. Now we’re communicating intensively with local governments where refugees [of religious pogroms] are staying. Hopefully we can come up with the solutions,” Lukman said.

He added his ministry would also work with local Islamic clerics — who are often instrumental in inciting hostilities against minority groups — to get them to embrace religious tolerance.

“We’ll hold interfaith forums for religious teachers to make sure that everyone has the same standing,” he said. “Even though we have different beliefs, all religions teach the same lesson of promoting humanity — making humans human.”

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(Jakarta Globe) Religious Minister Lukman Promises Bill to Protect Religious Minorities

The lone minister to survive the cut to President Joko Widodo’s cabinet from the previous administration has unveiled plans to draft a bill that would afford unprecedented protection to religious minority groups, continuing where he left off in his battle against rising religious intolerance.