Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – In a move to push president-elect Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's to unconditionally commit to uphold human rights when leading the country, human rights campaigners strongly called for the Jakarta governor to immediately end prolonged discrimination against the country's religious minorities following his inauguration in October.
Activists included discriminations against members of the Ahmadiyah communities in Bekasi, West Java, and in Ketapang, West Nusa Tenggara, the Sampang Shia community in East Java and the congregation of the Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) Yasmin in Bogor, West Java in the list of cases of rights violations submitted to Jokowi through his transition team during a closed-door meeting at the team's headquarters in Central Jakarta.
"Pak Jokowi, as a governor, was widely applauded when he, despite harsh resistance by certain groups, appointed Bu Susan. He has proved that the state could not be suppressed," Hendardi, head of the human rights watchdog Setara Institute, said Wednesday, referring to Lenteng Agung subdistrict head Susan Jasmine Zulkifli.
Susan's appointment last year raised strong opposition from intolerant groups, as well as from some residents, because of her Christian background. They demanded her dismissal. However, against all odds, Jokowi stood by her.
"As soon as he is officially a president, Pak Jokowi must take concrete action and issue policies to allow members of the Ahmadiyah and the Shia communities, who have been exiled for years over accusations of blasphemy, to return home. He must also order the unsealing of the Ahmadiyah's Al-Mishbah Mosque in Bekasi and of the GKI Yasmin's church building in Bogor," Hendardi added.
Leveling accusations of blasphemy, a mob claiming to be members of the Sunni majority attacked and burned houses belonging to the Ahmadis in Ketapang nearly eight years ago, forcing the latter to live in rows of purpose-built shacks measuring two by three meters at the local Wisma Transito ever since.
Some of them have converted to Islam and officially registered "Islam" on their identity cards so as to be able to gain access to social services, including the obtaining of identity cards and birth certificates for their children, which would further expand their access to education, health care and other public services, but around 120 displaced people are still living in dire conditions at Wisma Transito, barely able to meet their basic needs.
Members of the Ahmadiyah community all across the archipelago suffered further discrimination after the government bowed to an Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) edict, which declared Ahamdiyah a deviant sect, and issued a joint ministerial decree in 2008 banning followers of the sect from observing their faith in public.
The decision by the Bekasi administration to lock down the Al-Misbah mosque last May has added to the long list of discriminations inflicted on the country's Ahmadis because of such discriminatory regulations.
For similar reasons, the Sampang Shia community was also forcibly evicted from their homes when a mob that claimed to be made up of local residents attacked their village in August 2012.
After subsequently being evicted from a local sports center, where around 161 Ahmadis took refuge following the attack, they now live in modest apartments managed by the East Java administration inside the Puspa Agro Market in Sidoarjo, hoping that one day they can return to their village.
Meanwhile, the standoff over the GKI Yasmin's building permit has been going since 2008, despite a ruling by the Supreme Court that affirmed the permit in 2010. Bowing to pressures from intolerant groups, the local administration has refused to comply with the ruling and unseal the building.