ASIA/INDONESIA – Hopes grow in religious minorities for greater security and more tolerance

Tuesday, 17 February 2015

Jacarta (Agenzia Fides) – Hopes grow in religious minorities for greater security and more tolerance. With the presidency of moderate Joko Widodo, communities such as Ahmad and Christians, express good wishes, judging favourably a draft law intended to safeguard religious minority groups.
The new legislation expected to reach Parliament in the month of April, aims to ”guarantee religious minorities protection from persecution”, say researchers from the Ministry for Religious Affairs. The Law is proposed by the new minister for religious affairs, Mr Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, who has been lauded for his inclusive attitude.
With another measure to benefit freedom, the new government recently lifted an obligation for citizens to choose to belong to one of the officially recognised religions and include it on identity papers; with the new rules this is no longer necessary.
In the recent past, restrictive norms for building new places of worship, approved in 2006, forced the closing of hundreds of churches or halls for Christian worshippers, and triggered attacks by Islamic groups which destroyed buildings considered “unauthorised” . Moreover, courts were lenient with perpetrators of religious violence, punishment was light and impunity rampant.
For these reasons, Indonesia saw its image as a “tolerant and pluralist” nation tarnish due to a spiral of religious violence mainly against Ahmad, Shiites and Christians. Indonesia’s Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and officially recognises 6 communities: Islam, Christianity (counted as two Catholicism and Protestantism), Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 17/2/2015)


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