PORTRAIT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEGAL PROTECTION FOR INDONESIAN CITIZEN THAT EMBRACE FAITHS/BELIEFS: BETWEEN PRINCIPLE OF RIGHTS RECOGNITION AND DISCRIMINATION

The diversity that Indonesia has as a country, which consists of ethnicity, religion, belief, regional language and tradition is a gift from the Almighty Creator, requires the presence of the state to provide protection for the right to embrace religion and belief for every citizen. Currently, there are 6 (six) religions recognized by the state, while there are hundreds of faiths/beliefs embraced by the people who also want to get formal recognition. This paper aims to identify laws and regulations and government policies in recognizing the rights of faith-believing citizens, the development of their implementation as well as the constraints faced by citizens who embrace beliefs in exercising their rights. The applied research method is normative legal research using primary and secondary legal materials. The results show that there are several discriminatory laws and ministerial decrees, such as religion information in the Identity Card which must state as following a certain religion, the right to receive religious education, the right to interfaith marriage, and negative stigma from the community. After the Constitutional Court Decree Number 97 of 2016 and Government Regulation Number 40 of 2019, this recognition was formally granted. However discrimination on interfaith marriage had yet been recognize by marriage law and  people\u27s perceptions of the group of followers still considered them to have deviated because they did not choose and embrace one religion