The Indonesian government has reneged on a promise to abolish sharia law in the country, according to Human Rights Watch.
The minister of home affairs Tjahjo Kumolo denied the government had planned to abolish sharia regulations in regions of the country, stating that only economic regulations were to be altered.
Last week the government cancelled 3,143 "problematic regional regulations" for violating the country's credo of "unity in diversity".
It was alleged that sharia regulations were among the number cancelled, but Kumolo denied this.
"Who erased them? Nobody cancelled those [sharia regulations]," Tjahjo said.
"For example, Aceh wants to apply Islamic sharia in its region, it is allowed. But if the same wants to be applied also in Jakarta, it surely can't be done," Tjahjo said.
"Everything is about investments. We do not interfere with regulations based on Islamic sharia."
It emerged in November 2015 that around 1,000 churches have been closed down in the sharia-law governed Aceh province in Northern Indonesia since 2006 as part of a wider crackdown on minority faiths. A law was implemented nine years ago, supposedly with the aim of promoting religious harmony, but in practice it requires non-Muslims to obtain 60 signatures from people of a different faith as well as permission from the local authority before they can build a place of worship.
In October 2015, Reuters reported that several churches had been destroyed after Muslim residents, including members of the hardline group Islamic Defenders Front, had demanded they be shut down. According to a report by the Gatestone Institute, hundreds of Muslims torched churches in Aceh, and an estimated 8,000 Christians were displaced by the violence in the region.
