Jakarta – Hundreds of Confucians gave orchids to Indonesian riot police, burnt incense and chanted prayers on Monday to demand the government officially recognise their religion.

The 200 ethnic Chinese protesters gathered outside the office of Indonesia's General Election Commission to demand parliamentary seats to represent their community.

"The rights of Confucians in Indonesia must be returned to what they ought to be," said the group in a statement, calling itself the Committee of Friendship for Confucian Religion.

Although Islam is the dominant religion for Indonesia's 200 million people, it is not the nation's state religion. Five religions are officially recognised – Islam, Protestant Christianity, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Indonesians are required to identify themselves as belonging to one of these five religions on their identity cards and cannot declare themselves atheists, agnostics or members of any other religious groups. However, many Indonesians privately follow other beliefs.

Indonesian Confucians generally declare themselves as Buddhists on their identity cards and there no official figures on how many Confucians there are in the country.