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HRW: Indonesia still weak on human rights
Jakarta Globe - January 23, 2014
Indonesian authorities, both national and local, have done little against violation of human rights, the report said, and cases of churches being demolished and minority religious groups forced from their homes were reported nationwide.
HRW noted that violations against minorities occurred on many fronts, including freedom of expression, women's rights, freedom of worship, military impunity, and official policies regarding refugees and asylum seekers.
The World Report 2014 also stated that militant Sunni Islamist groups, such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), had frequently threatened or attacked religious minority communities with impunity. Such groups, despite their violent activities, have been praised as a potential "national asset" by Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi.
Andreas Harsono, HRW's Indonesia researcher, shed some light on recent claims by Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali that Indonesia was a religiously tolerant country.
Not so secular
Andreas said that Suryadharma's claim held true only in relatively peaceful Kalimantan. "Eighty percent of the violence in Indonesia is happening in Java," he said, adding that the minister was not "specific enough" in his claims.
Despite President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's vow to "not tolerate any act of violence committed by any group in the name of the religion," religious attacks still occurred throughout the country in 2013. According to the Setara Institute, a think tank that advocates religious and democratic freedom, there were 292 reported attacks on religious minorities in 2013, up from 264 attacks in 2012.
One attack, on March 21, involved the demolition of a Protestant church in Bekasi, on the outskirts of Jakarta, when authorities bowed to pressure from the Islamic People's Forum (FUI) who opposed the presence of the church in the area.
In Sampang district on Madura Island, East Java, religious violence also flared up in June last year when a mob of more than 800 Sunni militants successfully convinced local authorities to evict hundreds of displaced Shiite villagers. The evicted residents were living in a sports center after having being attacked in their homes in August 2012, leaving one person dead.
Women's rights are human rights
Protecting women's rights was also highlighted as an issue for Indonesia in 2014.
According to the National Commission on Violence Against Women, 60 new discriminatory regulations were passed by national and local governments by August 2013. There are already 342 such discriminatory regulations, including 79 local bylaws requiring women to wear the Islamic hijab, or head scarf.
The women's commission also reported that there were 35 reported cases of sexual abuse of women each day.
In addition to successfully passing bylaws in 2013, local authorities tried to propose a "virginity test" for girls entering high school, saying that the test would prevent youths from engaging in premarital sex and prostitution.
Despite the proposed test being met with a public outcry in some areas, similar plans are on track to be introduced in Pamekasan, East Java.
"President Yudhoyono is all talk and no action when faced with government officials and militant groups intent on curbing the rights of women and religious minorities," Phelim Kine, the deputy Asia director at HRW, said in a press release.
"Unless Yudhoyono takes decisive action in the final months of his presidency in 2014, his legacy will be marred by his failure to defend the rights of all Indonesians."
Getting the vote
Andreas said that with national elections drawing near, political parties needed to do more to address issues of religious violence, or the situation would get worse. He identified two laws that he said need to be reviewed in order to attempt to overcome Indonesia's intolerance to religious freedom.
One of them is the 1965 Blasphemy Law, which has long proved controversial but galvanized international outrage in 2012 when it was used to imprison a man in West Sumatra who had renounced his Muslim faith on Facebook.
Andreas said the other regulation that should be repealed was a 2006 joint ministerial decree setting the conditions for building a house of worship, which has long been criticized as making it near-impossible for non-Muslim congregations to build a church or other house of worship.
HRW says that in rare cases, the decree has also been used against Muslim activity in Christian-majority parts of eastern Indonesia.
Andreas said HRW would not be surprised if political parties incited religious intolerance to appeal to the conservative Muslim voter base ahead of the elections.
Indonesia, he said, still has a long way to go before it can be considered a champion of religious tolerance and freedom, a task that now falls to the next president.
"Far too many Indonesian government policy decisions in 2013 had a negative impact on human rights," Kine said. "The challenge for Indonesia's next president will be to make human rights protection a top priority."
But voters face the difficult task of electing a leader who wants to better the human rights record with the fear of possibly electing candidates who have ties to previous cases of human rights violations.
One of the leading candidates, according to polls, is Prabowo Subianto, a former commander of the Army Special Forces, or Kopassus, linked to rights abuses during Indonesia's occupation of East Timor and accused of the abduction of student protesters during the unrest that led to longtime ruler Suharto stepping down in 1998.
Wiranto, another presidential hopeful and the last military chief under Suharto, has also been linked to the 1998 violence.
HRW noted that on another front, the government had acted positively toward ending the national taboo on discussing the purge of suspected members and sympathizers of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in 1965 and 1966, by allowing limited screenings of "The Act of Killing," an award-winning documentary about that dark period.
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