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Indonesian
Christian Woman Gains Asylum
BOB EGELKO, CHRONICLE STAFF WRITER
An Indonesian woman living in San Jose is eligible for political
asylum because ethnic Chinese Christian women in Indonesia
are periodically targeted for rapes and other violence,
a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
should help many Bay Area residents who have similar claims,
said Robert Jobe, a lawyer for the woman, Marjorie Lolong.
The court ruled last year that ethnic Chinese had been victims
of discrimination in Indonesia and needed less evidence
of persecution than other applicants to prove eligibility
for asylum. On Friday, the court said Christian women in
the largely Muslim nation are particularly at risk.
Lolong, now 35, left Indonesia after high school because
of limits on the number of ethnic Chinese allowed to attend
college. She was a student at Golden Gate University in
San Francisco when anti-Chinese rioting broke out in Indonesia
in 1998. After learning that a friend had been raped --
one of dozens, or possibly hundreds, of Chinese women raped
during the riots -- and an uncle had been severely beaten,
she applied for asylum later that year, the court said.
An immigration judge ruled in her favor, but the decision
was overruled by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which
said Indonesian government leaders have declared their commitment
to ethnic equality and religious freedom.
On Friday, the court said there was little evidence that
the government was able to control the perpetrators of violence,
and that no one was ever prosecuted for the rapes during
the 1998 riots.
Chinese-Indonesians “continue to be scapegoated for the
country’s widespread poverty,’’ said Judge Betty Fletcher,
citing expert testimony. She said religious violence is
being stirred by a growing Islamic militant movement, rogue
elements in the Indonesian military have supported ethnic
and religious attacks, and Chinese homes and Christian churches
have been burned. The church that Lolong’s parents attend
has received bomb threats, the court said.
Because of her gender, religion and ethnicity, Fletcher
said, “Lolong’s fear of future persecution is well-founded.’’
Lolong, said her lawyer, lives with an ailing aunt in San
Jose and works at a local food store. Lolong wasn’t available
to talk to a reporter
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