Religious Freedom or "Pluralism" in Indonesia ?

Does not exist !  Period.

There is not freedom of religion, or freedom from it, in Indonesia. Period, end of story!

The beleaguered Christian GKI Yasim Church in Bogor is a prime example.  Christians' right to worship there as [supposedly] protected by the Indonesian Constitution has been impeded by continued harassment and intimidation (a form of terrorism) by crowds of Islamic hard-liners. 

Although the Supreme Court of Indonesia and an Ombudsman rendered advisory opinions to the mayor of Bogor to re-open the GKI Yasim Church, which the Mayor of Bogor had closed down in 2008, neither President SBY nor the Minister of Religious Affairs will get involved as of this date to uphold and affirm the Constitutional protection [supposedly] afforded to Christians to worship freely.

When the Minister of Religious Affairs was asked to intervene, he said that it was not his concern or issue and refused to get involved.  If it's not his concern, then whose in the #@%& is it !!   Tell me now that there is religious freedom and pluralism in Indonesia?  It simply does not exist and is an ideological fantasy.      

This latest snippet of news below only compounds my previous article concerning this matter, however. 

My "Nostradomusian" prediction:  There will be civil wars (an oxymoron by the way, LOL) and "Holy Wars" (another oxymoron) in Indonesia in the not too distant future as all this continues to percolate or come to a boil in the social, cultural and political cauldron of this country. 

Here's an article appearing in What's New Jakarta publication:

E-KTP Programmed to Now Make Allowance for Citizens Outside Six Official Religions:

In what has to be a bold step and surely will not be without controversy as militant religious groups mushroom across the archipelago, the government plans to allow people who do not identify with any of the six official religions to leave the religion column on their identity cards blank, the Home Affairs Ministry says. The change is meant to put the country’s pluralistic founding principles into practice by offering a solution for people who have often felt marginalized by government policy due to their minority religious affiliations. “Believers in local religions, for instance, don’t have to fill out the religion column on their identity cards if they don’t want to. Just leave it empty,” Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi said after opening a meeting on electronic identity cards, or e-KTP, in Jakarta on Monday, and reported by The Jakarta Globe. The existing law requires that every Indonesian citizen hold an identity card identifying them as one of these six religions. The country also does not recognize agnosticism or atheism. Gamawan said he would invite related officials, including Minister of Religious Affairs Suryadharma Ali, to finalize the proposal. The plan, however, will be discussed further with the Ministry of Religious Affairs before being floated to the public.

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Another Related Article:

President Yudhoyono has been Urged to Show Leadership in Yasmin Saga:

Although Lawmakers Eva Kusuma Sundari and Lily Wahid - sister of the late president Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid - have visited the Christian congregation in recent weekends to demonstrate their support for the congregation’s right to worship free of harassment by increasingly aggressive crowds of Islamic hard-liners, there has still been nothing heard from SBY – President Yudhoyono.

The president is now being challenged to uphold both his obligation as the head of state and his personal promise to resolve the increasingly untenable situation affecting Bogor’s GKI Yasmin church congregation. Rumadi, the program coordinator at think tank the Wahid Institute, said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had made a promise to church leaders when they met him at his residence in Bogor late last year. “You said you would make a personal visit to resolve the Yasmin church conflict. Your officials, the mayor of Bogor and related ministers have already shown that they cannot solve it themselves. Mr. President, you must fulfill your promise immediately,” Rumadi said at a news conference on Sunday and reported by The Jakarta Globe.

On Sunday, Lily Wahid remonstrated with protestors from the Indonesian Muslim Communication Forum (Forkami) and the Islamic Reform Movement (Garis) who surrounded a Bogor home where Yasmin congregation members were worshipping. She has previously said the president must step in to tell Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto to abide by a year-old Supreme Court ruling ordering him to reopen the Yasmin Church, which his administration has sealed off since 2008. Last Sunday saw a well-organised group of Islamist protesters with professionally produced signs and almost certainly not from the Bogor area disrupted yet another Prayer Service – this time in the private residence of a member of the Yasmin community.