TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:Religious tolerance levels in Indonesia has reached a deplorable point, with increasing cases of intolerance recorded across the country, even in remote areas, chief of the Indonesian Legal Resource Center (ILRC) has said. Uli Parulian Sihombing warned on Wednesday that the spread of hate speech on the basis of religion was growing across the country. “It continues to place minorities as the enemy,” Uli said, referring to increasing attacks against the Islamic minority sect Ahmadiyah, as well as the Shias attacked in Sampang, East Java. “Minorities are being subjected to repeated acts of intolerance, intimidation, vandalism and violence,” Uli said. In April of this year, a survey by the Institute for Islam and Peace Studies, or Lakip, involving more than 600,000 high school students in Greater Jakarta, showed that 48.9 percent of students were willing to be involved in acts of religious violence, and that 41.1 percent of students were willing to vandalize houses of worship of other religions. Last month, a survey by the Pantau Foundation, showed that 64.3 percent of 600 Indonesian journalists surveyed by the study had agreed that the Ahmadiyah should be banned. ANANDA PUTRI