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Reply to @clacke@libranet.de
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛@clacke@libranet.de (2026-08-25 11:32:03)
The Ministry of Religious Affairs grants official status to six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. A 2006 civil registration law does not allow Indonesians to identify themselves as a member of any other religion on their identity cards.
... you list your religion on your identity card. 🤯


According to an analysis of the 2000 census data, about half of Chinese Indonesians were Buddhists, and about one-third Protestant or Catholic.
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clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛@clacke@libranet.de (2026-08-25 11:32:11)
The first wave of conversions occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, and the number of ethnic Chinese Christians during this period quadrupled. The second wave followed after the government withdrew Confucianism's status as a recognized religion in the 1970s. Suharto endorsed a systematic campaign of eradication of Confucianism. As the result, many Chinese in Jakarta and other parts in Java island are mostly Christian, meanwhile in non-Java cities like Medan, Pontianak and other parts in Sumatra and Borneo island are mainly adherents to Buddhism, and some of them still practising Taoism, Confucianism and other Traditional Chinese belief.
There's the confirmation of the anecdote.

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clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛@clacke@libranet.de (2026-08-25 11:35:55)
Although the government has restored Confucianism's status as a recognized religion, many local authorities do not abide by it and have refused to allow ethnic Chinese from listing it as a religion on their identity cards. Local officials remained largely unaware that the civil registration law legally allowed citizens to leave the religion section on their identity cards blank.
If your local official follows the rules, you don't have to display one of six approved religions on your ID card.

Is there a structural disadvantage to going blank? Would you miss out on some benefits or quotas? Would your community frown upon it?