Zulfa Nur
Rohman, a student at a vocational public school in Semarang, Central Java, failed
the 11th grade because of his religious faith. School administrators informed
Zulfa, an adherent of a Javanese traditional faith Hayu Ningrat, that he cannot
continue on to grade 12 because he refused
to participate in “the practice of reading the Quran and performing prayer” in
a mandatory Islamic studies class.
Zulfa is a
victim of the pernicious and routine bureaucratic discrimination against
religious minorities in Indonesia.
Indonesia’s 1965 blasphemy law permits only six
officially protected religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism,
Buddhism and Confucianism. But government statistics indicate that Indonesia
has 245 native religions with more than 400,000
adherents.
They are
victims of regulations that discriminate against
religious minorities, ranging from the provision of official identification
cards, birth and marriage certificates, religious education and access to other
government services.
Like all
parents in Indonesia, Zulfa’s parents had to register his faith when enrolling
him in kindergarten. Because Hayu Ningrat was not an officially permitted
option, they opted to register him as a Muslim. School officials contended that
Zulfa’s official identification as a Muslim obligated him to fully
participate in his Islamic studies class and that his refusal to do so required
him to repeat 11th grade, including Islamic studies. Zulfa always did the
non-practicing studies until grade 11 when he was asked to pray and to recite
the shahada.
The school’s
principal, Sudarmanto, had no qualms about the school’s decision to penalize
Zulfa for refusing to participate in Muslim prayer practice.
“I reminded
his parents if he keeps on refusing to pray, his religion score will be zero
and he cannot move to grade 12,” Sudarmanto told Tempo. Zulfa has
refused to attend school while education administrators evaluate his parents’ appeal of the decision.
Indonesian
government policies have encouraged discriminatory religious teaching in the
country’s public school system. Then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2007
issued a government regulation that placed religious
education under the domain of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. It gave the
ministry parity with the Ministry of Education in formulating educational
policy. Yudhoyono also introduced a requirement that all schools, both public
and private, must provide devotional education in the six officially recognized
religions from kindergarten to university. That directive automatically
excluded minority religions such as Zulfa’s Hayu Ningrat.
In 2010,
then-minister of religious affairs Suryadharma Ali issued a directive requiring schools to provide a
teacher of one of the six officially recognized religions in every school that
has at least 15 students belonging to one of those religions. That rule
excludes students from religious minorities having education about their own
faiths.
Indonesian
law likewise excludes Muslim minorities — notably the Shia and Ahmadiyah — from
access to teachers of their religious faith in public
schools. These minority communities have been subject to
intimidation and physical attack by militant Islamists in the
conservative Sunni provinces of West Java, Aceh and West Sumatra with the
complicity of government officials and security forces.
State-sanctioned
religious discrimination is likely to plague Zulfa long after he eventually
graduates from high school. When he turns 17, he will be able to apply for an
official national ID card. Although Indonesian law has since 2006 not required
Indonesians to officially declare a religion in order to receive a national ID
card, many civil servants still do not know of the new law and deny the cards to religious
minorities if they refuse to choose one of the six religions.
Members of
religious minorities who opt to leave blank the ID card’s religion column can
be accused by government officials of being an
atheist — which is punishable under the blasphemy law. If they select one of
the six religions now offered, regardless of their own religious beliefs, they
can be accused of falsifying their identity.
President
Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and his cabinet should review and repeal all of
Indonesia’s discriminatory regulations against religious minorities. Until
Zulfa and the thousands of other members of religious minorities have the same
rights as those who belong to the officially recognized religions, the
religious freedom guarantees in Indonesia’s Constitution will remain empty
promises.
Andreas
Harsono is Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch.
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