Indonesia Urged to Tackle Rising Religious Violence

ICC Note: According to multiple sources violence against religious minorities, including Christians, has been surging across Indonesia over the past year. The violence is an indication of a broad increase in intolerance towards Christians and other religious minorities as radical Islamic groups seek to increase their influence over the countries more than 200 million Muslims. Dozens of churches have been forced to shut down after mobs of angry radicals protested outside of their buildings, with some incidents even turning violent as the mobs hurled dirt, garbage, and bags of urine at the congregations. 
03/01/2013 Indonesia (Jakarta Globe) – Failures in government leadership and law enforcement are fueling a surge of religious violence in Indonesia and have rendered religious minorities vulnerable to attack, an international rights group said in a report released on Thursday.
The Human Rights Watch report, “In Religion’s Name,” condemned the Indonesian government for its ignorant and at times “complicit” approach to religious conflict that it says has recently escalated.
Phelim Kine, HRW’s Asia deputy director, told a media gathering on Thursday that addressing religiously motivated violence “isn’t rocket science,” adding that the issue of religious conflict in Indonesia should not be left to the next government to deal with.
“This problem is like a form of toxic osmosis, it can and will spread and become a much more serious problem that will be much more difficult to contain in two years or five years,” Kine warned.
“Compounding the problem of this violence, intimidation and harassment by these mobs of vigilante-style thugs is a complete failure by the government of Indonesia to confront this violence and intimidation and to put a stop to it,” Kine said.
“In several notorious incidents, police and government officials have been passively, if not actively, complicit in acts of religious related intolerance and violence,” he said.
Examples where the Indonesian government and security forces have facilitated harassment and intimidation of religious minorities examined in the report include blatant discriminatory statements made by officials, the refusal to issue building permits for religious minorities’ houses of worship, and pressure forced on congregations to relocate.
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