Officials Turn Blind Eye as Religious Tensions Rise in Indonesia
SAMPANG, Indonesia — The problems began shortly after Tajul Muluk, a
Shiite cleric, opened a boarding school in 2004. The school, in a
predominantly Sunni Muslim part of East Java, raised local tensions, and
in 2006 it was attacked by thousands of villagers. When a mob set fire
to the school and several homes last December, many Shiites saw it as
just the latest episode in a simmering sectarian conflict — one that
they say has been ignored by the police and exploited by Islamists
purporting to preserve the purity of the Muslim faith.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, has long
been considered a place where different religious and ethnic groups can
live in harmony and where Islam can work with democracy.
But that perception has been repeatedly brought into question lately. In
East Java, Sunni leaders are pushing the provincial government to adopt
a regulation limiting the spread of Shiite Islam. It would prevent the
country’s two major Shiite organizations from organizing prayer
gatherings and sermons.
Mr. Muluk is part of an increasingly threatened minority. Last Thursday,
he was sentenced to two years in prison for violating a 1965
presidential decree against blasphemy by promoting a heretical
interpretation of Islam. He denies the charges. Analysts say that Mr.
Muluk challenged the Sunni-led power structure in his village, making
him a target of local leaders.
“Most conflicts are hitched to local politics,” said Ken Conboy, a
security consultant who has tracked rising religious intolerance in
Indonesia. “They’re based in communal, ethnic, tribal differences, but
it’s something that can be wielded by community and religious leaders.”
Only one person has been tried in connection with the arson attack, and
he received a sentence for time served, leading to his immediate
release.
Days after the fire, the local branch of the Indonesian Ulema Council,
or M.U.I., an influential group of Muslim clerics, issued a fatwa, or
decree, against Mr. Muluk, saying his teachings “tarnished” Islam.
“In Islam you have to be clean, focused and unified,” said Bukhori Maksum, the chairman of the council in Sampang.
Throughout his blasphemy trial, Mr. Muluk appeared both stoic and
incredulous. His wife, Ummu Kulsum, sat in the back of the courtroom.
“People in the village are trying to force us to join their religion,”
she said. “We will hold out, because it is our right.”
Mr. Maksum said that Shiites in Sampang practiced Islam in a way that
disturbed society. “M.U.I. Sampang has the obligation to respond to this
situation because if we did not, there would be bigger problems,” he
said.
Intolerance has also led to attacks on Christians, whose churches have
been closed under pressure, and on members of the Ahmadiyah, an Islamic
sect many mainstream Muslims consider heretical.
The Wahid Institute, a
liberal Islamic research organization working with some national
lawmakers to draft a law on the protection of religious minorities,
reported a 16 percent rise in cases of religious intolerance between
2010 and 2011, Including threats of violence, arson and discrimination.
Rights advocates accuse the police of turning a blind eye to such
actions and accuse the national government of yielding to Islamic
hard-liners for political gain. They point to a 2008 presidential decree
that prohibits “proselytizing” by the Ahmadiyah.
Officials, however, deny that the 2008 decree or any of the recent
anti-Shiite fatwas contravene the Constitution, saying they are
necessary to prevent social conflict.
“If individuals practice a different form of religion, which is against
the principles of other religions, this creates disunity and animosity,”
said Teuku Faizasyah, a special adviser to President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono.
Indonesia has opened up over the last 15 years, but the advent of
democracy and the decentralization of power have also allowed a greater
assertiveness by local religious leaders
Analysts say many senior officials, including Mr. Yudhoyono, are
reluctant to crack down forcefully on intolerance for fear of appearing
un-Islamic.
“Five years ago this trend was only in the big cities,” said Ahmad Suaedy, the executive director of the Wahid Institute. “But it’s spreading very fast because the government has ignored this situation.”
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