An interfaith group of Indonesian clerics on May 6 led a small march to the US embassy in Jakarta to deliver a letter protesting the decision by the Appeal of Conscience Foundation to give its 2013 World Statesman Award to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on May 30.
The New York-based foundation, created in 1965, issues its annual award to a ‘leader who has helped advance freedom, democracy, human rights and peace globally’.
The Rev. Erwin Marbun, co-ordinator of the Clergy Forum of Jakarta, Banten and West Java, said he wonders what criteria the foundation used. Christian churches in Indonesia have been bulldozed and minority Muslims have been attacked by mobs — evidence of what the Agence France-Presse news service characterised in May as ‘religious intolerance sweeping the country’.
