indonesian govts suppression of minority religions and irreligion

hello this is my first humanist blog post lol .  2day im going 2 talk about how the indonesian govt was horrible to minority religions from the very beginning .

ok so some history , in 1945 indonesia declared its independence ,  and in 1946 they created the ministry of religious affairs . the ministry of religious affairs was meant for monotheistic religions and monotheistic religions only , because the religious criteria only allowed monotheistic religions that have holy scriptures . this became a problem for the indonesian hindu population because they were considered "irreligious" and were legally not able to become indonesian citizens without converting into an accepted religion . so indonesian hindus became prime targets for proselytization into islam , with the ministry of religious affairs even calling for a systematic campaign to convert indonesian hindus [mostly concentrated in bali and other islands] into islam . after this , indonesian hindus had to find a compromise , so they found a reason as to why they are actually a monotheistic religion , and hinduism finally became accepted as an official religion in indonesia in 1962 .

but the struggle doesn't end there for other minority religions in indonesia , because local folk religions/belief systems such as Sunda Wiwitan or Tolotang were still not seen as official religions , and were seen as "irreligious" , unless they merged their faith with an officially recognized religion . because of their status as "irreligious" , many adherents of local folk religions in indonesia were forced to convert in order to survive the indonesian communist [and irreligious] purge perpetrated by the New Order government when they took power . even now , local folk beliefs are all grouped into a religious group called "kepercayaan" [which translates into "belief" or "faith"] , which generalizes all indonesian folk religions instead of accepting the diversity of belief in indonesia .

i also criticize the concept of an "officially recognized religion" , why should there be a criterion as to what a religion is and is not when indonesia is supposedly a country where religious freedom exists ? doesn't religious freedom make official recognition of specific religions irrelevant ? in my opinion , this was always a compromise . indonesian monotheistic [mostly muslim] politicians didnt want other religions/faiths to be accepted in indonesia , they wanted everyone to be monotheists . thats why "religious freedom" is guaranteed in the constitution [pasal 28e , ayat (1)] but in reality , it is not . they know that if they didn't have "religious freedom" in the constitution then non-muslim people would protest the constitution . but by controlling the definition of "religion" , they were able to decide which belief system/faith is a religion and which isn't , giving them complete control over actual religious rights .

the official recognition of specific religions is obviously also very harmful to irreligious people , who are still unable to get official citizenship without renouncing their irreligion . in fact , because of blasphemy laws in indonesia , being an open atheist could get you in jail . because saying common atheist positions such as "god does not exist" or even just "i dont believe in god" could land you in prison , as that is exactly what happened in Alexander Aan's blasphemy case .