Remove religion from ID cards: Ahok

JAKARTA. Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki “Ahok” Purnama has expressed his objection to the inclusion of religion on identity cards, saying faith is a personal matter.

He said at City Hall on Friday that he personally did not like the inclusion of his religion on his ID card. “What’s the point of mentioning your religion on your ID?” he asked, as quoted by kompas.com.

Ahok said that many countries in the world, even Malaysia known as an Islamic country, did not include religion in their citizens’ identity documents.

Ahok made his remarks when reporters asked for his comments regarding the plan by the central government to omit religion from the IDs of Indonesian citizens who did not belong to one of the six official religions.

Ahok said that religion was not an essential element in ID cards. He only laughed when it was pointed out that identifying religion was useful when the card holder died.