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UN Condemns Indonesia's Increasing Violence Against
Shiites |
The Jakarta Globe
November 13, 2012
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, also
known as Navi Pillay, speaks during a press conference in
Jakarta on Nov. 13, 2012. The UN human rights chief said she was
'distressed' by ongoing violence and discrimination against
Christians and Muslim minorities in Indonesia, the world's
biggest Muslim-majority nation. (AFP Photo/Adek Berry)
The UN human rights chief on Tuesday condemned violence and
discrimination against Christians and Muslim minorities like
Shiites in Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority
nation.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said she had
met with leaders of Christian communities, as well as Islamic
minority Shiite and Ahmadiyah sects, all of which have been
targeted by hard-liners in recent years.
“I was distressed to hear accounts of violent attacks, forced
displacement, denial of identification cards and other forms of
discrimination and harassment against them,” she told reporters
in Jakarta.
She warned Indonesia risked losing its culture of diversity and
tolerance “if firm action is not taken to address increasing
levels of violence and hatred towards minorities and narrow and
extremist interpretations of Islam.”
Indonesia’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion but
rights groups say violence against minorities has been
escalating since 2008 in the nation of 240 million people,
nearly 90 percent of whom identify as Muslims, the vast majority
Sunni.
Pillay recommended Indonesia repeal its blasphemy law from 1965,
under which a Shiite cleric was jailed for two years in July for
saying the Koran was not an authentic text and that the hajj
pilgrimage was not obligatory.
She also called for the revocation of a 2008 ministerial decree
that deemed Ahmadiyah “deviant” for believing in a prophet after
Mohammed and banned Ahmadis from proselytizing.
In May, a mob of 600 Islamic hard-liners threw plastic bags
filled with urine at an Indonesian church congregation marking
the ascension of Christ.
In August 2011, an Indonesian court handed jail sentences of
just a few months to 12 hardliners who clubbed to death three
Ahmadiyah men as police looked on.
Shiite Muslims have become common targets for hard-liners. A mob
of around 500 Sunni Muslims wielding machetes and sickles
attacked a Shiite community in August, killing two and torching
dozens of homes in eastern Java.
Pillay also expressed concern over Shariah law in Aceh province
— where canings are common and a law on stoning was passed in
2009 — saying enforcement was “arbitrary” and “discriminatory”
against women, creating “an environment of intimidation and
fear.”
courtesy: Agence France-Presse
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