ADVOCACY FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN DEMOCRATIZING INDONESIA

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Notes

1. Advocacy here is understood in its broader meaning rather than what is popular, only as attempts to influence the outcome of public policy decisions (McGrath 2007), but includes “social change process affecting attitudes, social relationships and power relations, which strengthens civil society and opens up democratic spaces” (Save the Children 2000).

2. Another trend that should be noted here is that seven out of nine ratified international human rights conventions were ratified by Indonesia after May 1998. For the many thriving civil society groups in Indonesia which are committed to religious freedom, this is an important trend to tap as well.

3. See Ali-Fauzi, Alam, and Panggabean (2009) which looks at the pattern between 1990 and 2008; the pattern after 2008 is inferred from the series of Annual Report on Religious Life in Indonesia (published since 2008 by the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies, Gadjah Mada University); another report which provides about the same picture is the research by the Peacebuilding Institute (Institut Titian Perdamaian) as recounted by one of its researchers in Miqdad (2014).

4. See, for example, Human Rights Watch (2013), Freedom House's annual assessment (http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2014/indonesia-0), or the annual US State Departments International Religious Freedom Report. The national reports are discussed later in the article.

5. The main figure that needs to be mentioned here is Budhy Munawar-Rachman, who works at Paramadina Foundation, edited many works on Madjid, and wrote a dissertation on Madjid's “inclusive Islam.” Cf. Kersten (2014).

6. There are other reports focusing on particular localities such as the ones issued in East Java by the Surabaya-based Center for Marginalized Communities Studies (CMARS) and in Central Java by the Semarang-based Institute for Social and Religious Studies (eLSA).

7. Besides being expressed by a number of officials, this way of presenting the issue was apparent in the government's report to the Human Rights Council during the 2012 UPR, in which it acknowledged the problems with regard to freedom of religion, mentioning two cases in particular (the Ahmadiyah and the GKI Taman Yasmin Church), but failed to present the full magnitude of the problems. The government's report is available at http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G12/116/38/PDF/G1211638.pdf?OpenElement: a discussion of the report is included as part of the Annual Report on Religious Life in Indonesia 2012 (CRCS 2013), which I co-wrote.

8. The 2013 Annual Report published by Setara, for example, shows a few local government heads as well as grassroots initiatives to maintain peace and fight discriminations (Setara Institute 2014).

9. The alliance has become an organization called Solidarity of Victims of Violation of Freedom of Religion and Belief (Sobat KBB). Besides the Christian and the Ahmadi, the activists now include one who is a member of a Shi'a community of internally displaced persons in East Java, and a member of a “stream of belief” (aliran kepercayaan), an Indonesian term for followers of syncretic religious beliefs, popular mostly in Java.

10. The five cases are as follows: one proselytization and conversion in the 2003 Child Protection Law (2006), on the polygamy article in the 1974 Marriage Law (2007), on 1989 Islamic Religious Court Law (2008), and two cases related to defamation of religion law, which will be discussed later. See Butt (2010) for a brief description of the Court; the article also discusses the 2007 and 2008 reviews which claimed that Muslim religious freedom was restricted by the two laws. In September 2014, the Court started to review another case on the Marriage Law, this time related to inter-religious marriage.

11. It is noteworthy that in some circles in CSOs, there was a proposal that instead of drafting law on religious harmony, what is needed is one on religious freedom. See Crouch (2013) for a discussion of the draft law.

12. As indicated by Parlevliet, human rights advocacy is not identical with rights-based approach. Human rights practitioners tend to use rights-based approach, referring to human rights in international or national documents, but may use power-based approach too, for example, when they pressure a government by publicizing its human rights record. Rights-based approach often uses the judicial system to deal with conflicts (Parlevliet 2002, 18–19).

13. This has been documented in books and films. Among the most recent is Manuputty et al., eds., Carita Orang Basudara, Lembaga Antar Iman Maluku (LAIM) and Pusat Studi Agama dan Demokrasi (PUSAD) Yayasan Paramadina, 2014. See also Ihsan Ali-Fauzi (2013, p. 58) and Rafsadie (2012).

Additional information

Zainal Abidin Bagir is the Director of the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies at the Graduate School of Gadjah Mada University. In 2008–2013 he was the Indonesian Regional Coordinator for the Pluralism Knowledge Program, a collaboration between four academic centers in The Netherlands, India, Indonesia, and Uganda, funded by Hivos. His main teaching and research interests include religious responses to contemporary issues, from religious freedom and management of diversity to science and ecology, especially as related to Muslims in Indonesia.