The Indonesian government's approach to Islamic outliers simultanesously marks them as dangerous and fails to protect the vulnerable from harm<\/p>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tDr Idhamsyah Eka Putra and Yesaya Sandang<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t01 December, 2020\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<\/em><\/p>\n In 2017, four Indonesian citizens<\/a> petitioned the Constitutional Court, demanding the right to have their religions listed on their ID cards. They represented four Indigenous religions including the Marapu \u00a0<\/a>(Sumba ), the Sapto Darmo<\/a> (Java ), and the Parmalim<\/a> and the Ugamo Bangsa Batak<\/a> (Sumatra). On November 7, 2017, the court ruled in their favour.<\/p>\n But the Ulama Council objected<\/a> to the decision. The Ministry of Home Affairs, which issues and manages ID cards, has since failed to implement the court decision. The Ulama Council argued that the ruling \u201churts the feeling of the Islamic ummah<\/em>,\u201d but it is not clear on what legal grounds the ministry refuses to do its duty.<\/p>\n Separately, the Constitutional Court rejected three petitions to revoke the blasphemy law<\/a> between 2009<\/a> and 2018<\/a>, declaring that religious freedom was subject to certain limitations to preserve public order (former President Abdurrahman Wahid joined the lawsuit in 2009<\/a>). Those limitations, the court stated in its 2010 decision, were to be defined by \u201creligious scholars,\u201d thereby outsourcing the rights of minorities to unelected members of the majority religion.<\/p>\n There are more than 180 ethnic-religious communities<\/a> spanning from Sumatra to the smaller islands in eastern Indonesia. They are estimated to encompass around 10 to 12 million people<\/a>, although the 2010 census recorded only 299,617 people or 0.13 percent<\/a> of Indonesians claiming to be exclusively ethnic believers. It is still hard and even dangerous to publicly declare one\u2019s religion in Indonesia.<\/p>\n Indeed, it is gruelling work to battle against both government officials and the Sunni ulama<\/em>. Spineless politicians, feckless government bureaucrats, and narrow-minded ulama<\/em> officials hamper the development of democracy and human rights in Indonesia.<\/p>\n Jarwan in Curug Goong knows very well that he cannot rely on the government or anyone else to protect the tomb he stands guard over. \u201cWe have seen this mistreatment and intimidation for decades. We must guard our sacred places ourselves.<\/p>\n The post Religious minorities in Indonesia face discriminiation<\/a> appeared first on New Mandala<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n This post was originally published on New Mandala<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Spineless politicians, feckless government bureaucrats, and narrow-minded ulama officials” stand in the way of religious freedom in Indonesia.<\/p>\n The post Religious minorities in Indonesia face discriminiation<\/a> appeared first on New Mandala<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":723,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/723"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8063,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8062\/revisions\/8063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}