Human Rights Activists Blast Award for Indonesian President

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Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is set to receive an award in New York this week from a U.S.-based interfaith group, sparking complaints by human rights advocates who charge the leader of the world’s biggest  Muslim-populated nation has fallen short, particularly in protecting religious minorities.

The Appeal of Conscience Foundation is giving its World Statesman Award to the Indonesian president for his “pursuit of peace and helping Indonesia evolve into a democratic society and an opponent of extremism,” the group said.

The award, which the president plans to accept in person in New York Thursday night, “is an encouragement to advance human rights, religious freedom and interreligious cooperation, the core objectives of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation worldwide,” the group added in an email.

The U.S.-based rights group East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) plans to protest the award being given to Mr. Yudhoyono outside the ceremony. Meanwhile, two online petitions protesting the award decision have drawn more than 10,000 signatures.

“President Yudhoyono must not be allowed to polish his image while incidents of religious intolerance increase,” ETAN coordinator John Miller said.

President Yudhoyono, acknowledging the criticism, said this week that he respects different opinions and will work harder to encourage tolerance in Indonesia.

“I admit that there have been events which weren’t representing [inter-religious] tolerance. We need to work harder and more effective to improve it,” the president said. “We should be thankful that despite our flaws, our progress in democracy, my commitment for peaceful conflict resolution and [our increasing] role in international dialogues” is being acknowledged by the Appeal of Conscience Foundation.

Past recipients of the award include former British prime minister Gordon Brown, former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak and Canada’s current prime minister Stephen Harper.

In his near nine-year tenure, Mr. Yudhoyono has been praised for combating terrorism and helping to create political stability in the young democracy following the ouster of authoritarian ruler Suharto in 1998. His administration also helped end a decades-long separatist conflict in the Indonesian province of Aceh, where a more conservative form of Islam is practiced. And he is credited for Indonesia’s leadership role in the Southeast Asia region, for example, in helping bring about a peaceful solution to a border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia in 2011.

While local activists credit Mr. Yudhoyono for such steps, they say he hasn’t done enough to protect the rights of all citizens, particularly over religious differences.

As a result, religious violence still erupts in Indonesia. They point to such incidents as in February 2011 in Cikeusik, when police fled as hundreds of people, some carrying machetes, attacked the house of a local leader of Ahmadiyya, considered by some Muslims to be a deviant sect. The head of the local police force and two other senior officers were removed from their posts in the following week over the incident.

Three people were convicted and sentenced in the incident to three and six months in jail. Meanwhile, people convicted of attacking and burning down houses of Shia community in Madura island in 2011 and 2012 received jail terms of between eight and 10 months earlier this year. Many Indonesians considered the punishments to be too lenient, especially when compared to other sentences for relatively minor crimes, such as the five-month sentence handed to a teenager in Palu, Central Sulawesi, who was convicted of stealing a $3 slipper.

The U.S. State Department has echoed some of the complaints by human rights groups.

The majority of Indonesia’s Muslims, representing about 85% of the country’s 245 million population, remains moderate, and religious conflicts are caused by a small number of hardliners, said Hendardi, the chairman of local human rights watchdog Setara Institute, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name.

But the number of religious clashes has climbed over the years, making it a worrisome trend, especially as the country is perceived as unable to take firmer actions, added Mr. Hendardi. Such conflicts in Indonesia increased to 264 in 2012 from 135 in 2007, his group reported.

Andreas Ismar

Joko Hariyanto contributed to this article.

30 May 2013

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