REGIONAL ANALYSIS
Maritime Asia
The Maritime Asia region consists of the Malay Peninsula, Malay Archipelago, Australia, New Zealand, and the numerous small island nations of the Indo-Pacific Region. Religious persecution continues and serves as the main driver furthering significant conflict and instability in the region, primarily in the form of militant Islam.
The countries in Maritime Asia which exhibit the most severe religious repression continue to be the Maldives and Malaysia, mainly due to extremist Islamic ideology. Although Malaysia’s constitution protects religious freedom, the rights of religious minorities are constrained by the constitutional and legal privileges granted to Sunni Islam. Ethnic Malays, who represent nearly 70 percent of the population, are forbidden to convert while non-Malays (mainly those of Chinese and Indian origin) remain free to convert. Considerable religious intolerance persists against minority faith groups, and Christians continue to face persecution most recently because of the online resurfacing of a popular book against Christians entitled Pendedahan Agenda Kristian (Exposing the Christian Agenda). In the state of Sabah, there were reports that government officials changed the religious identity of Christians to Islam and in Sarawak, a largely Christian state, discrimination is reported against smaller Christian groups who face difficulty applying for grants and obtaining government recognition. On a positive note, however, in 2021, a high court in Malaysia overturned a judgement banning the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims declaring it unconstitutional. Rohingya refugees also continued to face persecution and hostility due to xenophobia, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when they were denied basic social services.
The small nation of the Maldives, primarily known as an international tourist destination, recognises Sunni Islam as the official religion. Thus, the Maldivian claim that 100 percent of the population is Muslim is upheld only by the fact that solely adherents to Sunni Islam can become citizens. The 25 percent of the population who are immigrant non-Muslims have no access to nationality. The Maldives continues to be a notorious recruiting ground for terrorists and random acts of hatred and violence have increased in recent years with multiple assassination attempts on key political leaders, and attempted attacks on primary schools. An incident that caught international headlines occurred in June 2022, when a UN International Yoga Day celebration was interrupted by Islamic fundamentalists who entered the stadium with flags and placards condemning the practice of yoga and shouting “God is Great” in Arabic.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, has become ever more inhospitable for religious minorities. Placed on the recent US Commission on International Religious Freedom Special Watch List, citizens have increasingly been convicted under the blasphemy law with Christians appearing to receive harsher sentencing than Muslims. On a positive note, there have been some strides by the government to defend the rights of religious minorities. In December 2022, President Jokowi was the first president to attend a Christian service on Christmas day and in January 2023, the president defended religious minorities and stated that they have the same rights in terms of freedom of religion and worship.
In the Catholic-majority Philippines, the militant group Abu Sayyaf continued to conduct violent acts of Islamic extremism. In 2022, the militant group was responsible for planting homemade bombs on the premises of two Catholic churches in Jolo city.
In the small nation of Brunei, despite fully implementing Sharia law in 2019, there were some positive reports that the country’s imams preached that women’s achievements should be celebrated and encouraged them to work outside the home.
Many nations in Maritime Asia continue to be free and peaceful. These include the large island nations of Australia and New Zealand; the majority-Christian nations of Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste; and the Pacific micro-states of Vanuatu, Samoa, Kiribati, Tonga, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau, Tuvalu, Nauru, Fiji Islands, and the Solomon Islands. At the same time, these countries have not been without religious freedom challenges, for example in those nations where discrimination against Muslim minorities persists especially when attempting to register marriages and births. Smaller Pacific nations are also increasingly caught in a geostrategic tug-of-war with China and the United States/Australia due to their location. Australia continues to transfer some of its asylum seekers to an offshore detention centre in Nauru. This has been condemned by human rights groups, as well as by the Catholic bishops in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, deemed a violation of human rights.
