Review sharia bylaws, say scholars

Jakarta - The government came again under attack Thursday after refusing to scrap sharia-based ordinances, which Islamic scholars said worked against freedom of religion.

Senior Nahdlatul Ulama leader Masdar Farid Mas`udi said while Islamic sharia was exclusively for Muslims, the government had made it effective for the wider public and had imposed sanctions on anyone failing to adhere to it.

Several regional administrations have made conduct prohibited under Islamic law a crime.

In the West Sumatra city of Solok and the capital Padang, as well as Banten province, women are obliged to wear headscarves in public regardless of their religion.

And local administrations in Padang, West Sumatra, in Indramayu, West Java, and in Maros, South Sulawesi, have made Koran literacy among all school children a requirement, regardless of religion.

"If an ordinance refers to a certain practice in a religion, such as detailing the way people should pray and the way a women should dress, it has violated freedom of religion," Masdar told The Jakarta Post after addressing a discussion on religious freedom.

He said the government should scrap such sharia ordinances, arguing religious belief was a private matter from which "the state must stay away".

"It is not the task of the state to govern the private domain of its people," he said.

Earlier this month, Home Affairs Minister Mardiyanto shrugged off demands the government revoke or review sharia-based bylaws, saying they were aimed at protecting people`s lives.

He said the regulations should not be seen as exclusive for Muslims because they were aimed at promoting general public order.

"Actually, the issue is not about the importance of reviewing the ordinances, but it is more about how to give a better understanding to people, so they will have similar perceptions of these ordinances, which were imposed to protect their own lives," the minister said.

Former Muhammadiyah chairman Ahmad Syafii Maarif said although the local administrations were authorized to draft their own bylaws, the state should intervene if the enacted ordinances contravened the Constitution.

"The 1945 Constitution upholds freedom of religion," Syafii said.

"The government should take actions against any ordinances which oblige people to behave within certain religious teachings."

Lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution, a member of the Presidential Advisory Board, said during the forum the state should take action against humans rights violations.

"The freedom of religion is an issue of human rights enforcement," he said.

"We have to unite, advocate the promotion of human rights and push the government to tackle the whole problem hampering the enforcement of religious freedom," he told the discussion.

Source: old.thejakartapost.com (1 Maret 2008)
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