Indonesia: Persecution of Gafatar Religious Group
Thousands Forcibly Evicted, Relocated, Detained
Two men remove the Indonesian flag while the compound of the Gafatar religious group burns after being set on fire by villagers in Mempawah regency, in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province on January 19, 2016. © 2016 Antara Foto/Reuters
MARCH 29, 2016
(Jakarta) – Indonesian officials and security forces have been complicit in the violent forced eviction of more than 7,000 members of the Gafatar religious community from their homes on Kalimantan island since January 2016, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch research in West and East Kalimantan provinces found that security forces failed to protect members of Gerakan Fajar Nusantara, known as Gafatar, standing by while mobs from the ethnic Malay and Dayak communities looted and destroyed properties owned by the group’s members. Government officials transferred Gafatar members to unofficial detention centers and then to their home towns not as a short-term safety measure but apparently to end their presence on the island and dissolve the religious group.
“Ethnic groups and state officials have acted hand-in-hand in the name of ‘religious harmony’ to deny members of the Gafatar religious community their basic rights to security and religious freedom,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director. “Government agencies and security forces did little to protect Gafatar members from expulsion, but instead assisted in their forced eviction, locked them up, and scattered them around the country.”
The security forces prevented physical assaults on Gafatar members, but only by forcibly evacuating them from Kalimantan to Java, members told Human Rights Watch. Authorities then arbitrarily detained and interrogated them and threatened them with criminal charges.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/03/29/indonesia-persecution-gafatar-religious-group