Youth Wing Questions Plan to Scrap Religion Colums on ID Cards

Jakarta (Antara) - The youth wing of the Islamic organization Muhammadiyah has questioned the government's plan to scrap the religion column on ID cards, arguing the plan has no legal basis. "If the plan is approved it will contradict the spirit of the first tenet of state ideology Pancasila and article 29 paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 of the 1945 Constitution," chief of the organization's youth wing Saleh Partaonan Daulay said in a Blackberry message text on Friday. The first tenet of Pancasila and article 29 of the 1945 Constitution affirms explicitly that each citizen is obliged to believe in one supreme God. Saleh who is also chief of the House Commission VIII said religion reflects that a citizen believes in one supreme God. "That's why scrapping the religion column on the ID cards amounts to allowing citizens not to believe in one supreme God," he said. Indonesia is not a religion country but the state guarantees its citizens to adhere to a religion, he said. If the religion column on the ID cards is left blank, then how the state will be able to protect its citizens to perform religious services, he said. "We fear that the abolition of religion column on the ID cards will have an impact on the effort to liberalize all aspects of life," he said. (*) Reported by Imam Budilaksono