The Indonesian government is failing to protect the country's religious minorities from growing religious intolerance and violence, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono should respond much more decisively and adopt a "zero tolerance" policy for attacks on religious minority communities.

‪The Indonesian government is failing to protect the country’s religious minorities from growing religious intolerance and violence.‬ Human Rights Watch has documented the government’s failure to confront militant groups whose harassment and assaults on houses of worship and members of religious minorities has become increasingly aggressive. Indonesian monitoring groups have noted a steady increase in such attacks, and most perpetrators of these attacks have received little or no punishment. Local officials often have responded to acts of arson and other violence by blaming the victims. Additionally, ‪Indonesian government officials and security forces have often facilitated harassment and intimidation of religious minorities by making blatantly discriminatory statements, refusing to issue building permits for religious minorities’ houses of worship, and pressuring congregations to relocate. ‬

Sri Lankan security forces have been using rape and other forms of sexual violence to torture suspected members or supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). While widespread rape in custody occurred during the armed conflict that ended in May 2009, Human Rights Watch found that politically motivated sexual violence by the military and police continues to the present. In the cases documented by Human Rights Watch, men and women reported being raped on multiple days, often by several people, with the army, police, and pro-government paramilitary groups frequently participating. Rape and other sexual violence of detained men and women by the security forces during and ever since the armed conflict suggests that sexual abuse has been a key element of the broader use of torture and ill-treatment against suspected LTTE members and supporters. This torture is intended to obtain “confessions” of involvement in LTTE activities, information on others including spouses and relatives, and, it appears, to instill terror in the broader Tamil population to discourage involvement with the LTTE.