The Indonesian government has decided to ease rules for building houses of worship, including churches, by initiating changes to a 17-year-old decree, considered a major barrier to such plans.
Religion Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas told law-makers on June 5 that the Joint Ministerial Decree of 2006 will be revised, doing away with the need for a recommendation from the Forums for Religious Harmony (Forum Kerukunan Umat Beragama, or FKUB), the main arbiter on issues regarding inter-faith ties.
According to current rules, a government license for building a place of worship can be obtained only by getting a set of recommendations, including one from the Muslim-dominated FKUB.
The change would mean the recommendation from represen-tatives of the ministry in the local government would be sufficient to construct a house of worship.
“Often, the more recommendations the more difficult it is,” said the minister, who is a cleric and member of Indonesia’s lar-gest moderate Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama.
“We can’t deny that,” the minister said of many proposals new houses of worship are rejected in the country.
“We can solve all problems if we start with honesty, especially being honest with our religion,” said the Muslim politician.
Andreas Harsono, a researcher from Human Rights Watch, said that “by removing permits for houses of worship from FKU-B, the government is actually returning the principle of freedom of religion, according to the 1945 Constitution, to Indonesia.”