Jakarta – Academics and politicians are alarmed at the government's inaction amid a flood of religion-based regional regulations with the potential to sow conflict.

Although the 2004 law on Regional Autonomy states that local governments do not have the authority to issue religious laws, administrations in Padang, West Sumatra; Cianjur, West Java; Bulukumba, South Sulawesi, and Pamekasan on East Java's Madura island have issued regulations that support the implementation of sharia law.

Indra J. Piliang of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said Tuesday the 2004 law gave the government the authority to abolish local regulations if they contravened national laws or the Constitution.

He attributed the government's inaction to wariness about inflaming the issue. "I think the government is trying to be cautious because religion is a sensitive matter." The implementation of sharia in regions could disturb relations between religious groups, especially in encroaching on freedoms of minorities, he warned. Administrations should not control religious matters, because individual beliefs were in the private realm, Indra said.

Former regional autonomy minister Ryaas Rasyid said the central government should be more active in enforcing the law and determining if the regulations were illegal. He termed the use of sharia to oblige women, including non-Muslims, to wear headscarves as inappropriate, and added that such bylaws should be scrapped.

Ryaas, a current member of the House of Representatives' commission for regional autonomy, cautioned that not all regulations implementing Islamic law were in defiance of the law and Constitution.

Closer examination was needed of the substance of regulations implementing sharia principles, he said. "If the local rulings only regulate the banning of gambling and liquor and not implement all Islamic laws, I don't think they defy the law."

House Commission II member Andi Yuliani Paris of the National Mandate Party said local administrations should not draw up regulations that discriminate against any religious or ethnic group. "Regulation that dichotomize religious groups will sharpen the potential for conflict." She said judicial review or a class action suit could be filed against local administrations that violated the law in their issuance of regulations.

With the implementation of sharia, women and non-Muslims would be most likely to suffer, Abdul Moqsith Ghazali of the Liberal Islam Network said. "Why do local administrations think they have the right to punish women for not wearing headscarves?" He said the Koran does not state a punishment for women who do not cover their bodies or heads.