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"Andreas Harsono is not well known to the public but he is very well known among a small network of human rights activists, dissident scholars, Indonesian journalists, and foreign correspondents. He is often the fixer behind their stories – unacknowledged, unassuming, unselfish. Now he has shown just what a superb chronicler he is in his own right."

Clinton Fernandes of University of New South Wales University
on Andreas Harsono's book Race, Islam and Power

Andreas Harsono meliput dampak dari tsunami 2014 di Aceh. Ombak raksasa tersebut membunuh lebih 100,000 orang dan mengakhiri perang selama tiga dekade antara Gerakan Acheh Merdeka dan Indonesia lewat perjanjian damai Helsinki pada Agustus 2015. ©Hotli Simanjuntak

Media dan Jurnalisme

Majalah Pantau

Saya bekerja sebagai wartawan The Jakarta Post, The Nation (Bangkok) dan The Star (Kuala Lumpur) serta majalah Pantau (Jakarta) soal media dan jurnalisme.

Sejak umur 20 tahun, saya suka menulis soal jurnalisme, mulai dari sejarah sebuah majalah mahasiswa di Salatiga sampai kebebasan pers di Asia Tenggara. Bill Kovach, guru jurnalisme, mendidik saya buat menjadi wartawan yang lebih baik ketika belajar di Universitas Harvard. Ini membuat saya suka buat berbagi pengalaman dan ilmu, dari etika sampai liputan.

Buku dan Laporan

Monash University Publishing 2019

Saya menerbitkan dua antologi –Jurnalisme Sastrawi (2005) bersama Budi Setiyono dan “Agama” Saya Adalah Jurnalisme (2011)—serta beberapa laporan termasuk Prosecuting Political Aspiration: Indonesia’s Political Prisoners (2010), In Religion’s Name: Abuses Against Religious Minorities in Indonesia (2013) serta "I Wanted to Run Away": Abusive Dress Codes for Women and Girls in Indonesia (2021). Pada 2019, buku Race, Islam and Power terbit.

 

Hak Asasi Manusia

Filep Karma

Sejak 2008, saya bekerja sebagai peneliti buat Human Rights Watch. Ia membuat saya banyak menulis soal diskriminasi terhadap minoritas agama di Indonesia: minoritas dalam Islam termasuk Ahmadiyah dan Syiah; minoritas non-Islam termasuk Protestan, Katholik, Buddha, Hindu dan Khong Hu Chu; minoritas agama kecil maupun agama baru macam Millah Abraham. Minoritas gender --termasuk perempuan serta LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer)-- juga sering saya bahas. Secara geografis saya juga banyak menulis minoritas etnik macam Aceh, Kalimantan, Jawa, Maluku, Timor serta Papua.

Perjalanan

Chiang Mai 2018

Saya pernah jalan dari Sabang sampai Merauke, dari Miangas sampai Rote, lebih dari 80 lokasi, selama tiga tahun. Saya menulis tempat menarik. Saya juga sering menulis perjalanan di negeri jauh, dari Eropa sampai Amerika, praktis berbagai kota besar di Asia Tenggara. 

Cerita

Glodok, Jakarta 2019

Ini soal pengalaman hidup, dari kegembiraan sampai kesedihan, dari kawan sampai adik. Saya selalu tinggal di Pulau Jawa --Jember, Lawang, Malang, Salatiga, dan Jakarta-- namun pernah bermukim di Phnom Penh dan Cambridge. Kedua anak saya lahir di Jakarta. Isteri saya, Sapariah Saturi, kelahiran Pontianak, pindah ke Jakarta kerja. Saya sering mengunjungi New York. Mungkin kawan saya di luar Indonesia, paling banyak di New York. 

Pope Francis Visits Indonesia Amid Rising Religious Intolerance

Roman Catholic Leader Should Call on Authorities to Protect Minority Rights

Andreas Harsono

Indonesia Researcher

The parish of St. Joannes Baptista in Parung, near Jakarta, Indonesia, using tents for their services. It has not secured a church permit after applying for more than two decades. © 2024 Andreas Harsono/Human Rights Watch

Pope Francis is in Indonesia as part of a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. His visit comes as numerous discriminatory regulations in Indonesia target religious minorities around the country.

Just a short drive from the Vatican Embassy in Jakarta is the parish of St. Joannes Baptista in Parung, where the local Catholic community had bought land to build a church. Then, in 2006, the Indonesian government introduced the “religious harmony” regulation. Only instead of promoting harmony, the law effectively gives the local religious majority veto power over minority places of worship.

The regulation allowed the Muslim majority in Parung via the official Religious Harmony Forum to deny permission to build the church. Muslim groups then started intimidating the parish’s Christian community.

In 2013, Alexander Adrian Makawangkel, a member of the parish, told me about the continual harassment. “I often stay the night here, guarding the compound and monitoring cameras,” he said.

This week, I visited the parish again. A decade on, there is still no church. The parish uses tents for its 3,000 members, but often must dismantle them because of pressure from the local administration, especially during Christmas and Easter celebrations.

St. Joannes Baptista is not the only Christian group facing pressure. Local groups have estimated that several hundred to perhaps over 1,000 churches have been closed, sealed, or burned in the past two decades. However, Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs has failed to gather data on those churches. Other religious minorities, such as Ahmadiyah, Buddhists, Hindus, Kejawen, Millah Abraham, Shia, and Sunda Wiwitan face similar discrimination.

Harassment and violence against religious minorities in Indonesia is rising, facilitated by laws that undermine religious freedom. In 2022, for instance, parliament expanded the toxic blasphemy law from one to six articles, and those found guilty can be imprisoned for up to five years. A University of London study documented more than 700 regulations discriminating against religious minorities, as well as women and LGBT people. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom states that the conditions in Indonesia are “trending negatively.”

Makawangkel died in January 2019, his dream of building the church unfulfilled. Pope Francis should encourage the Indonesian authorities to spare others such anguish and to protect religious freedom for all, not only for the majority.