the government established the Bureau for Supervision of Religious Movements
(Pakem) under the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which comprises people from the
Attorney-General’s office. For example, smaller Christian groups like the Jehovah’s
Witnesses, who claim an active membership of approximately 17 , 100 , are not
officially recognised in Indonesia. Thus problems of defining ‘religion’ occur not
only between religions, but also within almost any particular religion.
In the case of Ahmadiyah, Indonesia’s minister of religious affairs, Suryadharma
Ali, called for the Ahmadiyah to be banned.^42 Several provinces across Indonesia
have also brought in local regulations restricting the group’s activities. The decrees
include prohibiting the Ahmadiyah from distributing pamphlets, putting signs in
front of their offices and places of worship, and forbidding them from wearing
anything to indicate that they are Ahmadiyah members. Three members of the
Ahmadiyah community were beaten to death in February 2011 when a thousand-
strong mob wielding rocks, machetes, swords and spears stormed the house of
an Ahmadiyah leader in Cikeusik, Banten. The government’s solution is that
Ahmadiyah should declare themselves as a new religion, no longer part of Islam.
The problem is whether Law No 1 of 1965 will allow for the establishment of
Ahmadiyah as the seventh religion in Indonesia. If not, then what is the minister’s
legal justification for Ahmadiyah’s establishing a new religion? This is a problem
with regard to intra-religious pluralism.
Several human rights activists, NGOs and also former president Abdurrahman
Wahid have challenged the validity of Law No 1 of 1965. They took the view that
this law has restricted the word ‘religion’ in Article 29 of the Constitution to only
six religions, and has encouraged discrimination against small sects or groups
which have different interpretations than those of the six ‘official’ religions, and
has put the government in a position to determine which interpretation, sect or
group is legitimate or not. However, in April 2010 , the Constitutional Court
rejected the legal challenge, and instead upheld Law No 1 of 1965. Eight of the
judges found that the law is necessary to maintain public order and is respectful of
the principle of religious freedom in Indonesia. Dissenting judge Maria Farida, the
first ever female member of the court, reasoned that the law should be revoked
because it is at odds with the constitution, since it recognises only six religions,
and is used arbitrarily to suppress all other religions. Mahfud CJ stated that the law
itself is not contrary to the basic articles in the Constitution, but he admitted that it
needs to be made clearer, and stated that it is up to the parliament to amend it.
43
Since the Indonesian ‘middle position’ (neither secular nor Islamic) allows
for law and religion to overlap, there is scope for legal religion and religious law.
This brings difficulties as legal expectation is not always in line with religious
(^42) Bernhard Platzdasc, ‘Religious Freedom in Indonesia: The Case of the Ahmadiya’, ISEAS
Working Paper: Politics & Security Series No 2 ( 2011 ).
(^43) See Constitutional Court Decision No 140 /PUU-vii/ 2009 on 19 October 2010.