JakartaPost-Sept 8, 2024
Human rights activists have called for the government to take more decisive action to undo discriminatory and environmentally damaging policies, framing Pope Francis’s push for interfaith dialogue to solve global humanitarian and environmental crises as a wake-up call. Among the last items on the 87-year-old pontiff’s itinerary for his Jakarta visit was signing the Istiqlal Declaration, which urges religious leaders to take collaborative efforts in addressing humanitarian and environmental crises, including interfaith conflict. Indonesia was the first stop on Pope Francis’s his 12-day Asia-Pacific tour. While lauding the declaration as a milestone for improving interfaith ties among Indonesia’s six official religions, activists warned the government and religious leaders to avoid oversimplifying the four points contained in the declaration. “There is a strong impression that the Indonesian government is trying to downplay the pope’s concern, as if the main problem lies only in pluralism and religious tolerance while everything else is fine,” said Usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia. He argued that the more urgent issue facing the people at present was the state’s continuing engagement in acts of intolerance, including criminalizing people under the draconian blasphemy law. Among the examples Usman cited was the blasphemy case that resulted in the 2017 conviction of Meliana, a Chinese Indonesian in Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra, for complaining about the volume of adzan (call to prayer) blasted from the loudspeakers of a local mosque. He also highlighted the government’s recent abuse of power in allowing the expansion of mining permits for state-owned concessions to apply to religious organizations, which distorted the role of religious leaders and potentially exacerbated environmental degradation. During his visit to Istiqlal Mosque on Thursday, Pope Francis underlined that Indonesia’s greatest wealth was not its gold mines, but the ability to maintain “harmony in diversity” to prevent conflict, a message he repeated while leading mass at Gelora Bung Karno (GBK) Stadium later that day. Read more at:
