Jakarta, NU Online
The Central Board of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest Islamic organization in Indonesia, urged the government not to delete religious affiliation on electronic ID cards for this mechanism could result in unbalanced demographic data in the country.<>

Chairman of NU, Slamet Efendy Yusuf said that there were other religions outside six recognized religions in Indonesia, namely Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. He worried if the religion is not written on ID cards, people can fill it with particular religion.

"For example, if someone says he is a Muslim but his religion is actually not Islam, so how? It means the existing numbers of Muslims in Indonesia are not valid," Yusuf said  here on Saturday.

He added that government should liberate its citizens to believe in one recognized religion freely, or it could trigger religious hypocrisy.

Yusuf said that many people did not know that there were also Jews in this country. It happens as they do not show themselves freely. So, if their identities are written on ID cards, the government will be able to map population administration, especially in term of religion in Indonesia. The data is accordance with the reality.

Editing by Sudarto Murtaufiq