Click to expand Image Soldiers walk past a burned Ahmadiyah mosque in Cisalada, West Java province, which hundreds of Muslims burned along with five other houses on October 2, 2010. © 2010 Reuters

(Jakarta) – The Indonesian government is failing to protect the country’s religious minorities from growing religious intolerance and violence, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono should respond much more decisively and adopt a “zero tolerance” policy for attacks on religious minority communities.

The 107-page report, “In Religion’s Name: Abuses against Religious Minorities in Indonesia,” documents the government’s failure to confront militant groups whose thuggish harassment and assaults on houses of worship and members of religious minorities has become increasingly aggressive. Those targeted include Ahmadiyahs, Christians, and Shia Muslims. Indonesian monitoring groups have noted a steady increase in such attacks, one group finding 264 violent incidents over the past year.

“The Indonesian government’s failure to take decisive action to protect religious minorities from threats and violence is undermining its claims to being a rights-respecting democracy,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “National leadership is essential. Yudhoyono needs to insist that national laws be enforced, announce that every violent attack will be prosecuted, and map out a comprehensive strategy to combat rising religious intolerance.”

Human Rights Watch conducted research in 10 provinces on the Indonesian islands of Java, Madura, Sumatra, and Timor, and interviewed more than 115 people of various religious beliefs. These included 71 victims of violence and abuses, as well as religious leaders, police officers, militant group leaders, lawyers, and civil society activists.



Local officials too often have responded to acts of arson and other violence by blaming the victims, Human Rights Watch said. Most perpetrators have received little or no punishment. In two cases, local officials refused to implement Supreme Court decisions granting minority groups the right to build houses of worship. While some national officials have spoken out in defense of religious minorities, others – including the minister of religion, Suryadharma Ali – have themselves made discriminatory statements.



Yudhoyono has failed to use powers at his disposal to defend religious minority communities and has not effectively disciplined cabinet members when they have encouraged abuses, Human Rights Watch said. Ali made discriminatory remarks about the Ahmadiyah and Shia in a March 2011 speech at a political convention, claiming: “We have to ban the Ahmadiyah. It is obvious that Ahmadiyah is against Islam.”In September 2012, he proposed that Shia convert to Sunni Islam. Ali was not sanctioned for either comment.



“The government has shown a deadly indifference to the growing plight of Indonesia’s religious minorities, who reasonably expect their government’s protection,” Adams said.

Soldiers stand guard outside Santo Petrus Paulus Catholic Church after a mob attack in Temanggung on February 8, 2011. Hundreds of Islamist militants attacked two other churches and a Christian school after the Temanggung court issued what they considered to be a lenient sentence for a Christian convicted of blaspheming Islam. The mob demanded the death penalty rather than five years jail term. © 2011 Reuters 379553 Indonesian soldiers inspect the wreckage of cars and motorcycles at the Temanggung Pentecost Church, which an Islamist mob in Temanggung, Central Java, attacked on February 8, 2011. Hundreds of militants stormed a courthouse and attacked three churches to protest what they considered to be a lenient sentence for a Christian convicted of blaspheming Islam. © 2011 AP Photo 379553 Pastor Ujang Tanusaputra of the GKI Yasmin church prays in a quiet corner outside his sealed church in Bogor in July 2011, which hundreds of security officers and Islamist militants prevented his congregation from entering. © 2011 Renata Anggraeni/GKI Yasmin 379553 Abjon Sitinjak sobs as he stands beside the ruins of his burned Pentecostal church, inside a palm oil plantation in Kuantan Singingi regency, Riau. No one was arrested for the arson of four churches—including his church— in April and August 2011. The government has banned rebuilding of the church, citing lack of permits. © 2011 Novita Simamora 379553 On January 29, 2013, a court in Sumedang, West Java sentenced Pastor Bernhard Maukar to IDR 25 million (US$2500) or three months in prison for using an "illegal church," which he had to serve because he could not pay. Maukar had set up and registered his Pentecost church with the local Ministry of Religious Affairs office in 1988. Islamist militants began to protest and later ransacked the church in 2011, and the government closed it down in July 2012. © 2013 Corry Maukar 379553 Militants burn down Shia houses on August 26, 2012, in the village of Nangkernang in Sampang regency, Madura Island. Hundreds of Sunni militants associated with the Ulema Consensus Forum torched around 50 Shia homes that day, killing one man and seriously injuring another, as several police officers looked on. © 2012 Saiful Bahri/Antara 379553 The ruins of a Shia school in the Nangkernang hamlet. On December 29, 2011, hundreds of Sunni militants attacked the Nangkernang hamlet in Sampang regency, Madura Island, burning houses and the Shia school, causing around 500 Shia residents to flee. Police charge only one man for the arson attack. © 2012 Firdaus Mubarik 379553 A student injured in a February 15, 2011 attack on a Shia school in Bangil, East Java sits with a friend. More than 200 Sunni militants destroyed property and injured seven Shia teenage students in the attack. Media attention prompted Indonesian police to arrest and charge six Sunni men, whom a Sidoarjo court sentenced each to three months and 21 days in prison. © 2011 Muhammad Alwi/YAPI 379553 A Shia woman’s ID card, showing that she is a villager in the Nangkernang hamlet. Sampang authorities refuse to categorize Shia as “Islam” and instead type “Kristen” (“Christian”) on the religion column of a Shia woman’s ID card. The woman wears a headscarf, common attire for Muslim females. © 2012 Firdaus Mubarik 379553 Tajul Muluk, a Shia cleric from Nangkernang hamlet, Madura Island, puts his head in his hand as he sits in the Sampang court. Islamist militants burned his house and forced his relatives and followers from their village. The court sentenced him two years in prison for blasphemy in July 2012. © 2012 Getty Images 379553 Soldiers walk past a burned Ahmadiyah mosque in Cisalada, West Java province, which hundreds of Muslims burned along with five other houses on October 2, 2010. © 2010 Reuters 379553 Twelve Muslims accused of attacking Ahmadiyah followers wait in a cell in a courtroom in Serang, Banten province, on July 28, 2011. On February 6, around 1,500 Islamist militants attacked the house of Ahmadiyah followers in Cikeusik hamlet in Pandeglang regency, killing three Ahmadiyah men and seriously injuring five. The court sentenced the 12 men to between three to six months in prison. © 2011 Reuters 379553 Billboards containing anti-Ahmadiyah decrees stand outside an Ahmadiyah mosque, as per a decree issued by West Java’s governor on March 2, 2011. Islamist militias and police officers collaborated in Cianjur to install the billboards. ©2011 Andreas Harsono/Human Rights Watch 379553 Police look on as militias of the Islamic Defenders Front close down an Ahmadiyah mosque in Pekanbaru, Riau, April 19, 2011. The banner reads: “The people of Pekanbaru support the Islamic Sharia. Ban the Ahmadiyah. It tarnishes Islam.” ©2011 Bahana Mahasiswa 379553 Piles of rubble mark the spot where Muslims had planned to build a mosque in Batuplat area, Timor Island. After Kupang’s mayor signed the building permit and laid the first stone on June 24, 2010, Christians accused the mosque of forging the signatures, and blocked construction. © 2012 Andreas Harsono/Human Rights Watch 379553 Djatikusumah, a Sunda Wiwitan priest, shows his ID card with a blank religion column. In 1964, the Indonesian government declared that his religious organization was conducting “illegal marriages,” refusing to register Sunda Wiwitan marriages and later prompting its abolition. Hundreds of native faiths face administrative discriminations in Indonesia. © 2012 Andreas Harsono/Human Rights Watch 379553 Alexander An, a Minang civil servant and administrator of the “Minang Atheist” Facebook group, looks out from behind bar. He was sentenced in June 2012 by the Sijunjung court, West Sumatra, to two-and-a-half years’ imprisonment and a fine of 100 million rupiah (around US$11,000) for “inciting public unrest” via his Facebook account. © 2012 Getty Images 379553 Two Bahai members, Syahroni and Iwan Purwanto, sit inside the Sukadana prison. In November 2010, a court in Sukadana, Lampung province, Sumatra Island, sentenced the men to five years in prison for “trying to convert” Muslim children to Bahaism. © 2011 Bahai community 379553

Islamist militant groups, such as the Islamic People’s Forum (Forum Umat Islam) and the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam), have been implicated in attacks and arson on houses of worship and homes of members of minority religions. Such groups seek to justify violence by espousing an interpretation of Sunni Islam that labels most non-Muslims as “infidels,” and Muslims who do not adhere to Sunni orthodoxy as “blasphemers.”



Indonesian government officials and security forces have often facilitated harassment and intimidation of religious minorities by militant Islamist groups, Human Rights Watch said. That includes making blatantly discriminatory statements, refusing to issue building permits for religious minorities’ houses of worship, and pressuring congregations to relocate.



Such actions are in part made possible by discriminatory laws and regulations, including a blasphemy law that officially recognizes only six religions, and house of worship decrees that give local majority populations significant leverage over religious minority communities. Sunni Muslim communities in areas of eastern Indonesia where Christians are a majority have also been victims of such regulations and in a few instances have had difficulty obtaining permission to build mosques.



Indonesian government institutions have also played a role in the violation of the rights and freedoms of the country’s religious minorities, Human Rights Watch said. Those institutions, which include the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the Coordinating Board for Monitoring Mystical Beliefs in Society (Bakor Pakem) under the Attorney General’s Office, and the semi-official Indonesian Ulema Council, have eroded religious freedom by issuing decrees and fatwas (religious rulings) against members of religious minorities and using their position of authority to press for the prosecution of “blasphemers.”



The increasing violence against religious minorities – and the government’s failure to take decisive steps against it – violates guarantees of religious freedom in the Indonesian constitution and international law. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Indonesia ratified in 2005, provides that “persons belonging to...minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion.”



The Jakarta-based Setara Institute, which monitors religious freedom in Indonesia, reported a rise in violent attacks on religious minorities, from 244 in 2011, to 264 in 2012. The Wahid Institute, another Jakarta-based rights monitoring group, documented 92 violations of religious freedom and 184 incidents of religious intolerance in 2011, up from 64 violations and 134 incidents of intolerance in 2010.



“Yudhoyono should endorse religious freedom as a fundamental principle of his administration and ensure that government officials are not promoting abuses against religious minorities,” Adams said. “Indonesia’s donors should take up the failure to defend religious freedom as a matter of urgency.”



Accounts from “In Religion’s Name”

They dragged me out of the water. They held my hands and cut my belt with a machete. They cut my shirt, pants and undershirt, leaving me in my underwear. They took 2.5 million rupiah [US$270] and my Blackberry [cell phone]. They tried to take off my underwear and cut my penis. I was laying in the fetal position. I tried to protect my face but my left eye was stabbed. Then I heard them say, "He is dead, he is dead."

– Ahmad Masihuddin, a 25-year-old Ahmadi, injured in a mob attack in Cikeusik, western Java, on February 6, 2011, after police present at the scene failed to intervene. Three of his friends were killed.

My husband chose Catholic as his official religion. But he’s practicing his Kejawen faith [a native Javanese spiritual belief system]. If we insisted to marry with our own religions, we won’t have birth certificates for our children, at least, without my husband’s name. The stripe in our ID cards creates another stigma in Indonesia.

– Dewi Kanti, a 36-year-old writer and batik maker from western Java, describing the discrimination created by Indonesia’s policy of only recognizing six official religions, marginalizing hundreds of traditional belief systems, like hers, as “mystical beliefs” which make it difficult for their followers to marry, apply for birth certificates, and receive other government services.

A motorcyclist came down the road and tried to hit me. When I looked down, I saw that I was bleeding. The police were 100 meters away. The attackers also had friends nearby. They attacked and beat the Reverend Luspida Simanjuntak until she was down on the ground. The police put me and the reverend on a police motorcycle. The thugs pulled her off the motorcycle and hit her three times with a wooden stick.

– Asia Lumbantoruan, an elder in the Batak Christian HKBP Ciketing church in Bekasi, on how young Muslims on motorbikes stabbed him on September 4, 2010. Two attackers were subsequently each sentenced to three to seven-and-a-half months in prison.

How could we ask Muslims to sign for the permit? The closest Muslim family lives around 500 meters from our church. The next one is about two kilometers. How could we find 60 [signatories]? That decree might work in urban areas. But it’s impossible to implement inside a plantation.

– Abjon Sitinjak, a 49-year-old farmer, whose Pentecostal church congregation in Kuantan Singingi, Riau, faces bureaucratic obstruction in their efforts to rebuild their burnt-down church due to a legal requirement that such building applications include 60 signatures from Muslim neighbors who support the construction of a non-Muslim place of worship.