THE DOWNSIDE OF DECENTRALIZATION: LOCALIZED

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 JAKARTA 006017

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/13/2014
TAGS: KISL PGOV KJUS PHUM ID
SUBJECT: THE DOWNSIDE OF DECENTRALIZATION: LOCALIZED
SHARIAH LAW IMPLEMENTATION

REF: A. 05 JAKARTA 3607 (SHARIAH: TODAY'S BROMIDE

B. TOMORROW'S REALITY?)

C. 04 JAKARTA 7007 (SHARIAH IN SOUTH SULAWESI)

D. JAKARTA 3159 (ANTI-PORNOGRAPHY BILL)

Classified By: Political Officer John Rath. Reason: 1.4 (D).


1. (C) Summary: Proponents of Islamic Shariah law enjoy
growing success exploiting Indonesia's political
decentralization to implement "Islamic morality" principles
on a local basis. Promulgated by local governments through
legislation or executive decrees, Shariah measures or more
deceptively-packaged "anti-immorality" laws have sprung into
force in at least 20 of Indonesia's 455 regencies and
municipalities in conservative areas of West Sumatra, West
Java, and South Sulawesi and the trend has spread to Jakarta
suburbs. Although many of the laws clearly violate the GOI
Regional Autonomy Law's ban on local laws relating to
religion and may discriminate in practice against
non-Muslims, GOI Ministry of Home Affairs officials told us
the Ministry feels reluctant to exercise its statutory
authority by invalidating such laws. Opponents must resort
to Indonesia's corrupt and inefficient legal system to
challenge the laws. Although the Yudhoyono administration
has not stated its views on localized Islamic morality laws,
its support for pending national anti-pornography legislation
indicates at least tacit approval. In light of mainstream
public concern over perceived growing "immorality," we expect
the trend of localized morality legislation to continue. We
also expect Islamist and other politicians to continue to use
"Islamic morality" as a socially-divisive wedge issue,
particularly in the run-up to 2009 national elections. End
Summary.

Front Door Locked, Slip In Through the Side Window
-------------- --------------


2. (SBU) Debate over the applicability of Islamic Shariah law
predates Indonesia's 1945 independence, and rejection of
Shariah law by the drafters of Indonesia's constitution
proved one of the motivating factors behind the armed Darul
Islam insurgency crushed by military force in the 1950s. A
highly-motivated element of Shariah proponents - a collection
of conservative but mainstream Muslims, militants such as Abu
Bakar Ba'asyir, and political demagogues of various stripes -
have tried without success, most recently in 2002, to amend
the constitution to make Shariah the law of the land. With
the front door to national Shariah implementation apparently
closed for the foreseeable future, Shariah proponents have
seized on implementation at the regency and municipality
level as an effective means to achieve their aim of codifying
and enforcing Islamic morality as they define it (Ref A). We
note that Aceh has adopted elements of Shariah law, but the
circumstances surrounding Aceh implementation appear unique
and shed little light on the national situation.


3. (SBU) Over the past several years, Shariah proponents,
working through allied local legislatures and mayors (not all
affiliated with Islam-based political parties),have
exploited the GOI's Regional Autonomy Law, the hallmark of
Indonesian political decentralization, to enact two sorts of
laws and decrees. The first makes direct reference to Islam
or Islamic symbols, and i some cases refer to Shariah law or
the "law of od." Such laws or decrees have gone into force
i at least 12 regencies and municipalities, most loated in
the traditionally conservative "Koran Bet" of West Sumatra,
West Java, and South Sulawesi. The 1950s-era Darul Islam
armed insurgency centered in these three regions, and the
descendants of some Darul Islam fighters, such as the son of
deceased Darul Islam leader Kahar Muzakkar, now spearhead
local Shariah implementation efforts.


4. (SBU) As an example of this sort of law, the local
legislature (DPR-D) in Bulukumba, South Sulawesi enacted
legislation that compels Muslim women to wear head covers,
bans public sale of alcohol, requires Muslim high school
students and marriage license applicants to demonstrate
minimal ability to read (but not necessarily comprehend)
Koranic passages in the Arabic script, and provides for a
governmental scheme to collect the ritual Muslim tithe
(zakat). A subsequent decree by the regency government
requires all local government signs written in the Indonesian
language to use both Western and transliterated Arabic
scripts (Ref B). Similarly, the municipality of Padang, West
Sumatra has enacted by mayoral decree regulations that compel

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female Muslim public school students to wear head covers and
require minimum Koran-reading competence of high school
students and marriage license applicants. Human rights
groups and non-Muslims in Padang and elsewhere have
complained that in practice non-Muslims - particularly
non-Muslim female students - are coerced into compliance with
the regulations through overt or more subtle peer pressure.


5. (SBU) The second sort of law seeks to impose and enforce
"Islamic values" in the garb of "anti-immorality"
regulations. While Muslim groups and Islam-based political
parties usually lead efforts to enact this sort of
legislation, the underlying premise that Indonesia suffers
from an ongoing "morality crisis" carries fairly wide
mainstream appeal in many parts of Indonesia, particularly in
Jakarta and other large cities. On a national level, the
pending anti-pornography bill (Ref C) provides a prime
example of this sort of legislation. At a local level, most
such legislation usually aims at prohibiting prostitution and
the public sale of alcohol. The legislative council of
Tangerang Municipality, an area that comprises working-class
suburbs and industrial areas west of Jakarta, has enacted one
of the more controversial "anti-immorality" (anti-maksiat)
laws. Among other provisions, the law states that "persons
whose stance or behavior is suspicious to the point that they
are considered to be engaged in acts of prostitution" are
subject to arrest and are banned from streets, public places,
eating and entertainment establishments, and all types of
rented accommodation. The law also bans public kissing and
the sale of alcohol everywhere but in star-rated hotels.
Tangerang's hard-charging mayor, Wahidin Halim, is a brother
of GOI Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda.


6. (SBU) Overzealous enforcement of this vague and subjective
provision by Tangerang police and "citizen volunteers,"
mostly young Muslim activists affiliated with hard-line
Islamic vigilante groups, has led to the arrest and at least
temporary detention of some women - including married
housewives, schoolteachers, and pregnant women - who claimed
that their sole offense was waiting on the side of the road
for public transportation, a common practice throughout
Indonesia. Labor union officials have complained that the
law has a disproportionately negative effect on female
workers who require public transportation to and from night
shift jobs at Tangerang's numerous factories. Supporters and
opponents of the law have staged multiple public
demonstrations to voice their feelings and have clashed in
recent weeks. Meanwhile, the local media reports that
prostitution remains rampant in the municipality: in a press
interview, a prostitute reportedly stated that she has
adapted to Tangerang's morality craze by donning a kaftan and
Islamic headscarf as she plies her trade, even claiming with
a laugh that the novelty of Islamic dress allows her to
charge customers more for her services.


7. (SBU) Following the Tangerang example, the legislative
councils of Depok, a university town on Jakarta's southern
border, and the adjacent Bogor Regency are reportedly in the
process of adopting similar morality legislation that would
ban prostitution, the public sale of alcoholic beverages,
homosexual conduct, and extramarital sexual activity. As
evidence of the "cut-and-paste" mode of legislative drafting
that is common in local Indonesian governance, local
journalists noted wryly that Depok's draft bill is identical
to the Tangerang law, even containing the same grammatical
and syntax errors. While Indonesia's two gargantuan mass
Islamic groups, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, affirmed in
March their long-standing opposition to national Shariah
implementation, leaders from both groups have been supportive
of local "anti-immorality" legislation and local group
branches have in some cases led efforts to enact such laws.


GOI Administrative Review - A Hollow Formality
-------------- -


8. (SBU) The GOI's Regional Autonomy Law, the statutory basis
by which local governments promulgate local laws and decrees
under Indonesia's grand experiment in political
decentralization, expressly forbids local governments from
enacting laws that deal with religion (as well as foreign
policy, national defense and security, the national budget,
and the judicial system). The Regional Autonomy Law also
provides that the GOI Ministry of Home Affairs will review
within a set period all local laws for conformity to national

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laws and the Indonesian constitution. The Regional Autonomy
Law further grants enforcement authority to the Ministry to
declare invalid a non-conforming law and to send it back to
the local promulgator for correction.


9. (SBU) While the GOI review process sounds smooth and
efficient in theory, practical implementation is something
quite different. Janirrudin, head of the Ministry's Legal
Directorate with review responsibility, told us that the
Ministry grants great deference in review to local
governments because they are better situated than the
Ministry to "understand the mentality and sociological
conditions" of their communities. He told us that his office
had not struck down any of the overt Shariah-based laws -
much less the more cleverly-packaged "anti-immorality" laws -
even though they clearly violate the Regional Autonomy Law's
prohibition against religious legislation. He stated that
Ministry approval was predicated on its understanding that
the laws will be applied only to Muslims. He also explained
that pro-Shariah demonstrators had previously visited the
Ministry to express their support for morality legislation,
thus implying that the Ministry was sufficiently intimidated
to grant rubber-stamp approval for all such laws. As an
example, he cited a demonstration several months ago by three
busloads of young Muslim activists from Tangerang who arrived
at the Ministry to agitate for passage of the Tangerang
anti-prostitution law. Pointing nervously at the Ministry
parking lot and stating that he did not want a return visit,
Janurridin said the Ministry approved the Tangerang bill and
returned it with only a non-binding "request" that the mayor
"clarify" to the public his enforcement plan.

GOI Judicial Review - Uncertain Prospects for Invalidation
-------------- --------------


10. (SBU) Indonesian lawyers tell us that Indonesia has no
legal mechanism whereby the Supreme Court or Constitutional
Court can declare void on legal principle local Shariah or
"morality" laws collectively. Rather, each local law must be
challenged separately and on its own merits, an expensive and
time-consuming process that offers uncertain prospects for
success. A group of legal NGOs has already filed suit in the
Indonesian Supreme Court to challenge Tangerang's
anti-prostitution legislation on constitutional grounds.
Constitutional Court Chief Justice Jimly Asshiddiqie opined
to a media interviewer that local Shariah laws such as
compulsory Islamic dress violate both the Regional Autonomy
Law and the Indonesian Constitution and are thus subject to
legal challenge.

Comment and Future Direction
--------------


11. (C) It is important to understand that shrieking,
wild-eyed, prayer-cap wearing Muslim militants and their
demagogic religious and political leaders are not the only
Indonesians who perceive growing immorality throughout their
society: the issue has resonance among the silent mainstream
majority, and GOI President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has
spoken out on several occasions to criticize perceived lewd
television and music. Recent opinion polling shows, however,
that Indonesian Muslims favor Shariah law in principle far
more than in practice: while 71 percent of respondents voiced
support for the bald proposition that Shariah law should be
implemented in Indonesia, smaller but still sizable
minorities favored such practices as stoning of adulterers
and amputation as criminal punishment. For this reason, we
do not expect to see in the near- or medium-term national
Shariah implementation or local laws that provide for such
measures as amputation of criminals or stoning. We do
expect, however, that the trend of measures such as
compulsory wearing of head-scarves and required Koran-reading
ability will continue and probably increase in
Muslim-majority areas, particularly given the propensity of
local legislatures to copy verbatim the laws of other
localities. The reluctance of the GOI Home Affairs Ministry
to exercise its statutory authority to invalidate such laws
shows the sensitivity of this issue and a general reluctance
to declare illegal something that, as Shariah proponents
argue, is "part of the religion," though a stronger Home
Minister Affairs Minister in the future might prove more
willing to exercise such authority.


12. (C) We also think that "anti-immorality" laws such as the
Tangerang law will continue to be adopted by local

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governments, and that such measures stand a better chance of
withstanding judicial scrutiny than overtly Shariah-based
laws (which themselves may well pass judicial muster),though
we note that opposition to the national anti-pornography
bills shows the possibility of mainstream backlash if laws
are deemed excessive. Our ability to influence the direction
of local legislation and decrees is extremely limited,
particularly given that our support over the past decade for
Indonesian political decentralization has helped to provide
the very autonomy that local governments are now exercising
by enacting such laws. Looking to the medium-term and
beyond, we expect that the larger "morality" or "Islamic
values" question - a catch-all concept that covers everything
from pornography to corruption by public officials - will
grow in importance as both a social and political issue,
particularly as political parties begin to search for
potentially winning platforms in advance of 2009 national
elections.
PASCOE