Legislator criticizes decree on religion

JAKARTA (JP): A legislator complained yesterday that the 1969 joint ministerial decree on religious propagation had restricted some religious communities' freedom to worship.

Sadiman of the Armed Forces faction said the decree was among the reasons why some Hindu temples had had to be built inside Navy and Air Force housing complexes, including those in Cimahi, West Java, and in East Jakarta.

"The military had to help provide land because Hindu (communities) could not get permission to build the temples," Sadiman told a hearing with Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher and House Commission IX for religious affairs and education.

"If building houses of worship is this difficult, what can a religious community do? Where are they going to pray?" said Sadiman, who is a Moslem.

The decree stipulates that a house of worship can only be built with the approval of a regional administrator such as a governor.

Sadiman said that, based on the decree, religious services at individual homes were banned. A home could not be turned into a house of worship because it could incite social disturbances, he said.

He said that, like Moslems, people of other faiths needed to worship together as well as by themselves. While many Moslems could hold a pengajian (a Koran discussion meeting) at home, people of other faiths such as Christians were often unable to do so because of the decree, he said.

The decree, issued Sept. 13, 1969, by the minister of home affairs and minister of religious affairs, guarantees citizens' freedom to perform religious duties. It stipulates that regional administrators, such as governors, must "guide and supervise so that acts of religious propagation... do not divide different religious communities".

It also prohibits intimidation, persuasion, force or threats in religious dissemination. It stipulates that governors can approve the construction of a house of worship after considering the opinions of local religious affairs officials, spatial zone planning and the "local situation".

Religious coexistence is a sensitive issue because of the country's religious pluralism. Sectarian tension has periodically deteriorated into clashes; the most recent cases include an attack on migrant Moslems in the predominately Catholic East Timor and attacks on churches in the predominately Moslem Situbondo in East Java.

The government recognizes five religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

In response to Sadiman's remarks, Tarmizi Taher reiterated the government's commitment to building harmonious relations between different religious communities.

He said migrant Balinese in the predominately Moslem town of Lampung were getting on well with locals. "And because of whose tolerance? Moslems," he said.

"If we are a (religious) minority there's bound to be problems," he said, adding that complaints about discrimination or treatment as a minority had come from all religious communities.

Islam is the majority's religion, but where Moslems are a minority, problems occur for them too, he said.

The decree was needed so that many mosques, for instance, were not built in areas where Moslems were a minority, he said. The decree was adopted as local administration rulings to prevent "aggression by any religious community".

He said Moslems' long-standing complaint of "Christianization" was always accompanied by grievances from other religious communities about "Islamization".

"The decree is actually a safety valve," Tarmizi said. "Religious coexistence here has actually been improving." (swe)