Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – In a bid to end long-standing religious discrimination in the country, newly installed Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo has said he will summon regional leaders whose administrations continue to ignore cases of injustice against people from minority faiths.
Tjahjo said that he would also involve the National Police chief in the discussion with local heads in order to seek a permanent end to religious discrimination.
"Indonesia is not a country based on any one religion. It is a country that is founded on the 1945 Constitution, which recognizes and protects all faiths," Tjahjo said during a meeting with representatives of minority groups at his office in Central Jakarta, on Wednesday.
In the meeting, Tjahjo, a politician from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) also renewed his call for the scrapping of ordinances issued by local governments to justify their discrimination against minority groups.
The meeting was Tjahjo's first official meeting after he took the oath of office on Oct. 27. "We have national standards. Leaders of every region should formulate bylaws according to these standards. Therefore, all bylaws that regulate religious groups should be reviewed," he said.
Representatives from minority groups that have long been victims of discrimination, including members of the Ahmadi congregation, the Shia community, the Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) Yasmin in Bogor, West Java, and the Congregation of Batak Protestant Church (HKBP) Filadelfia in Bekasi, West Java, joined the meeting, which was brokered by senior PDI-P politician Eva Kusuma Sundari.
Members of the groups had frequently sought an audience with Tjahjo's predecessor Gamawan Fauzi, but were blocked by bureaucracy at the ministry.
During the meeting, Deden Sujana from the Ahmadi congregation told Tjahjo that members of his community in West Java continued to be targeted by Muslim radicals.
He also highlighted the plight of the Ahmadi community in West Nusa Tenggara, who have been homeless for the past eight years after being accused of heresy.
Members of the Baha'i community as well as the Sunda Wiwitan, the native faith of the Sundanese people, who also joined the meeting, took turns in presenting their case.
Speaking after the meeting, Sheila Soraya from the Baha'i National Spiritual Assembly said she was convinced that Baha'is as well as members of religious minorities in the country could soon see an ease in their plight. "He [Tjahjo] was very attentive in listening to our stories. He was not defensive. That's the most important thing," Sheila told The Jakarta Post.
Sheila was also grateful that for the first time members of the Baha'i community could join an official meeting with the Home Minister.
"We did request an audience with the home minister [in the previous administration] so that he could listen to our plight but to no avail because of the red tape. Officials from within the Home Ministry continued to reject our proposal to meet the minister," Sheila said.
Now that the Baha'i have finally been recognized, Sheila hopes that the new government will soon guarantee the civil rights of members of the Baha'i community, who still struggle to access basic social services.
"Birth certificates register our children as having been born out of wedlock. It only mentions the name of the mother and not the father. This has put us in a difficult situation when we have to register our children at school," Sheila said.
Bona Sigalingging from the GKI Yasmin said his congregation was confident that with Tjahjo at the helm of the Home Ministry, and progressive PPP politician Lukman Hakim Saifuddin as religious affairs minister, the protracted struggle to reopen the church could soon end.
"We don't need to explain again and again about the case involving the shutting down of our church building. It's time to wait for him [Tjahjo] to realize his promise regarding the dispute over GKI Yasmin," Bona said.
In 2010, the Supreme Court ordered then Bogor mayor Diani Budiarto to reopen the GKI Yasmin church building, which was shut down for building-permit violations. After Diani rejected the order, the PDI-P officially withdrew its support for Diani's reelection bid.
The selection of Tjahjo to lead the Home Ministry has been warmly welcomed by members of minority groups as he is deemed to be one of the most progressive politicians on issues of religious tolerance.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/11/06/tjahjo-protect-minorities.html