Yet another study has ranked Jakarta among the worst provinces in Indonesia when it comes to religious tolerance or harmony — the verdict, this time, coming from the country’s Religious Affairs Ministry.
Today, Religious Affairs Minister Fachrul Razi announced to the public the result of ministry’s latest survey on religious harmony in Indonesia’s 34 provinces. Jakarta ranked in 27th place with a score of 71.3 out of 100. In last place was deeply conservative Aceh — the only province with special autonomy to enforce sharia law — with a score of 60.2.
On the good end of the scale was West Papua, which topped the list with a score of 82.1, followed by West Nusa Tenggara with 81.1 and Bali with 80.1.
Other provinces known for religious intolerance also fared poorly in the survey, such as West Java (32nd) and West Sumatra (33rd).
“This index is made up of several formulas. [The scores are calculated by gauging] harmony, tolerance, peace, respect between members of different faiths and their freedoms to exercise their respective religious worships,” Fachrul said at a press conference in Jakarta today, as quoted by Detik.
The survey was carried out from May 16-19 and June 18-24 this year, involving 13,600 randomly picked respondents from 136 cities/regencies in all 34 provinces. The survey has a margin of error of 4.8 percent.
Last month, Jakarta and West Java were named the least religiously tolerant provinces in Indonesia based on the number of recorded violations of religious rights in the past 12 years. Among the examples given to describe incidents of religious intolerance were discrimination, hate speech, acts of violence, as well as rejections to build houses of worship for adherents of minority religions. Political divide also often led to religious discrimination in recent years.
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