Religion continues to be contested in Indonesia and this battle has often been played out at physical sites of worship. While this conflict is not new, the recent intensification of attacks on places of worship of religious minorities is alarming.
In 2005, an estimated 50 Christian churches in West Java alone, and at least 10 Ahmadiyah mosques, have been damaged or forced to close by radical Islamic groups. In the same year, Hindu temples were vandalised in Bali. This violence against religious minorities continued up to the introduction of the Joint Ministerial Regulation on Places of Worship (‘New Regulation’) in March 2006.
The New Regulation stipulates the procedure for building a place of worship. It replaced Ministerial Decision No 1/1969 (‘Old Decree’), which had been criticised for its contribution in justifying violence at places of worship. Despite the commencement of the New Regulation, attacks on places of worship have persisted with disregard to the right to freedom of religion. Does the New Regulation, then, uphold the right to religious freedom, particularly for religious minorities?
Religion continues to be contested in Indonesia and this battle has often been played out at physical sites of worship. While this conflict is not new, the recent intensification of attacks on places of worship of religious minorities is alarming. In 2005, an estimated 50 Christian churches in West Java alone, and at least 10 Ahmadiyah mosques, have been damaged or forced to close by radical Islamic groups. In the same year, Hindu temples were vandalised in Bali. This violence against religious minorities continued up to the introduction of the Joint Ministerial Regulation on Places of Worship (‘New Regulation’) in March 2006. The New Regulation stipulates the procedure for building a place of worship. It replaced Ministerial Decision No 1/1969 (‘Old Decree’), which had been criticised for its contribution in justifying violence at places of worship. Despite the commencement of the New Regulation, attacks on places of worship have persisted with disregard to the right to freedom of religion. Does the New Regulation, then, uphold the right to religious freedom, particularly for religious minorities? This paper will argue that it does not. To begin with, in Section II, the Old Decree will be analysed on three levels: as a product of Suharto’s New Order regime, as a legal instrument used to justify and perpetuate violent attacks on the places of worship of religious minorities and, since 2005, as an outdated law in conflict with Indonesia’s religious freedom obligations. Then, in Section III, the New Regulation will be considered, beginning with a discussion of the intense public debate surrounding it, which will illustrate how the religious majority (Islam) and minorities have become further polarised. Then, an analysis of the framework of the ew Regulation will highlight the ways it fails to uphold religious freedom. Finally, the public response since the introduction of the New Regulation, in the form of minority resistance and the persistence of violence, will be drawn upon to assert that democracy has not only brought rights to the religious minority in Indonesia but oppression as well, because of perceived necessity for political parties to appease the Islamic majority in the process of law reform, in order to maintain their political support. |