Author: Dicky Christanto and Hasyim Widiarto
Publication: The Jakarta Post
Date: June 30, 2010
URL: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/06/30/shariabased-policies-could-'disintegrate'-indonesia-nu.html
"If we support one movement advocating
religious-based policies, others will want them too,"
Nahdlatul Ulama secretary-general Iqbal Sulam said Tuesday.
For example, a movement could arise advocating
Hindu bylaws in predominantly Hindu Bali, he said. While Muslims seek to abide
by Islamic teachings, making them into law "would do more harm than good,"
Iqbal said.
He was responding to calls for sharia-based
bylaws in Bekasi, an industrial city east of Jakarta, which last week hosted
a congress of a number of local Islamic groups.
Sharia bylaws are only legal in Aceh province,
as one of the conditions of its special autonomy following the 2005 international
agreement that ended decades of war.
However, since the introduction of regional
autonomy in 1999, bylaws regulating private conduct and morality have sprouted
in dozens of other regencies and cities.
Iqbal said all Islamic organizations should
work harder to empower Muslims socially and economically and promote religious
tolerance.
"Islam has come as a blessing for the entire universe. It has become
an obligation for all Muslims to respect all people, including those of different
faiths," he said.
Also on Tuesday, the chairman of NU's Bekasi
chapter, Zamakhsyari Abdul Majid, said the organization had never approved
a joint declaration issued from the above congress.
Clarifying an earlier report in this paper,
he said the NU member at the congress was there "in his capacity as a
member of the local Indonesian Ulema Council".
Earlier, an executive of the second-largest
Islamic organization, Muhammadiyah, had also voiced his disagreement at proposals
to pass sharia-based bylaws in Bekasi.
However, its Bekasi branch had agreed to the
proposal. Its advocates had said sharia-based policies were needed to curb
"ongoing efforts at Christianization," citing alleged attempts to
convert Muslims to Christianity.
On Monday a "caucus" of parliamentarians
and activists had called for the banning of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI),
a group known for its vigilante violent actions against "threats against
Islam". The caucus also raised the issue of bylaws "that accommodate
violence".
Previous attempts at revoking such bylaws
have failed. Three women had filed for a judicial review of the bylaw banning
prostitution in Tangerang, Banten, but the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that
it "did not violate higher regulations and laws". Such bylaws "were
just considered a way for local governments to pay more attention to local
values," said activist Agung Putri, who heads the Elsam human rights
watchdog.
Earlier this month, a curfew introduced for
women in Pamekasan regency, East Java, became the latest in a string of discriminatory
bylaws.
While the national women's rights body had
identified 154 bylaws considered "discriminatory" toward women and
minorities, constitutional law expert Saldi Isra said the popularity of the
bylaws was "now in decline".
Observers have said these bylaws had been
passed as "vote-getters" and that now voters were demanding the
realization of election promises in the second, current, wave of direct elections.
