Indonesia pressured over Ahmadiyah Muslim sect killings

Asia-Pac

8 February 2011 Last updated at 09:20 GMT

Indonesia pressured over Ahmadiyah Muslim sect killings

By Alice Budisatrijo
BBC News, Jakarta

A video made of the attack shows a mob attacking residents and inflicting vicious attacks

Indonesia has been criticised by US groups and others after a murderous attack against supporters of the minority Ahmadiyah Muslim sect.

A mob attacked sect members, killing at least three, while police either fled or stood by watching.

A body which advises the US government on religious freedom has said Indonesia must act against extremist attacks.

A 1965 blasphemy law, and a 2008 anti-Ahmadiyah decree, must be revoked, it said, and the attackers punished.

“This is just more deadly evidence that blasphemy laws are the cause of sectarian violence, not the solution,” said Leonard Leo, chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

“Indonesia is a tolerant county that should be more intolerant of extremist groups,” he said. “It’s time the Indonesian government brings them to account for the violence and hatred they spread.”

New York-based Human Rights Watch echoed the calls, saying the Indonesian authorities should be watching the video of the attack carefully to catch the perpetrators.

“There needs to be a full investigation into why the police absolutely failed to prevent this mob from going on a violent rampage,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Future fears

The group obtained and helped to disseminate the video which shows the attack, in which men forced residents to strip before beating them so violently that several died.

“How many Ahmadiyah have to die at the hands of mobs before the police step in,” Ms Pearson said.

“The Indonesian government should end this wave of hate crimes and immediately revoke the 2008 anti-Ahmadiyah decree, which encourages these vicious attacks.”

A spokesman for the police, Boy Rafli Ahmad, said that although 30 police officers had been present they were greatly outnumbered by the 1,000-strong mob.

“This brutal attack on Ahmadiyya followers reflects the continued failure of the Indonesian government to protect religious minorities from harassment and attacks and to hold the perpetrators accountable,” said Donna Guest, Asia-Pacific Deputy Director at Amnesty International.

The Jakarta Post newspaper said “barbaric” and “sadistic” were the two words most commonly used to describe the onslaught in Umbulan village, Pandeglang, Banten.

“But the killings may not be the last, and violence may continue increase as the government remains at a loss in addressing the issue,” it wrote.

The Indonesian government condemned the attack and has promised an investigation.

But critics have frequently asserted that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has not taken a strong stand against extremist Islamic groups for fear of their wealthy and military backers.

The decree of 2008 stopped short of banning the sect but threatens worshippers with jail if they continue to spread their beliefs.

The religious minister has called for the dissolution of the sect, mainly because of their belief that their founder, and not Muhammad, was the last prophet.

The Indonesian constitution guarantees freedom of religious expression.

Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population but it is a secular country. But the government has been accused of caving into their demands since it relies on the support of Islamic parties.

BBC © MMXI
URL: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12389097

Why Pakistan's Ahmadi community is officially detested

Page last updated at 15:01 GMT, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 16:01 UK

Why Pakistan’s Ahmadi community is officially detested

By Mohammed Hanif
BBC News, Karachi

	More than 80 Ahmadis were killed last months in two atacks in Lahore

When a Pakistani Muslim applies for a passport or national ID card, they are asked to sign an oath that no Muslim anywhere in the world is asked to sign.

The oath goes like this: “I consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad an impostor prophet. And also consider his followers, whether belonging to the Lahori or Qadiani group, to be non-Muslims.”

Like millions of other Pakistanis, I have signed this oath several times without giving much thought to exactly what Mr Ahmad stands for, or what the technical difference between Lahoris or Qadianis is. I want my passport, and if I have to sign up to a fatwa to get it, so be it.

But like millions of people from my generation I also remember that when I was growing up, the minority Ahmadi sect were considered just another Muslim sect.

Non-Muslims

Like scores of others I had friends who were Ahmadis. We played cricket together, and sometimes, when our parents ordered us off to the mosque, we even prayed side by side.

	Ahmadis are despised by many Pakistanis

Last month, when more than 90 Ahmadis were massacred in two mosques in Lahore, I remembered the precise moment in 1974 when it all began to change.

There were street protests by religious parties against Ahmadis demanding that they should be declared non-Muslims.

One day I saw some bearded activists standing outside a clothes merchant’s shop in our town, chanting anti-Ahmadi slogans and turning customers away, telling them that buying clothes from Ahmadis was haram - forbidden.

At the time I was learning to memorise the Koran from a very kind, mild-mannered teacher.

I asked him what exactly was wrong with the Ahmadis.

He explained to me that they didn’t believe that the Prophet Muhammad was the last and the final messenger.

I said OK, maybe that makes them kafirs, infidels, but who says that kafirs can’t sell cloth?

My teacher’s response was a full-handed slap, so sudden, so unexpected that it rang in my ears for days to come.

That same year Pakistan’s first elected parliament declared Ahmadis non-Muslims.

Then in 1984 Pakistan’s military dictator and self-appointed guardian of the faith General Zia-ul-Haq inserted that oath in the constitution that we are all required to sign.

Because of the new laws, Ahmadis have been sent to prison simply for using the Muslim greeting Assalamu alaikum, or putting a Koranic verse in a greeting card.

Heretic

Over the last three decades the hatred against Ahmadis has become so widespread that Pakistan is now embarrassed by the only Nobel laureate it has ever produced.

	Attacks on Ahmadis are beconing increasingly commonplace

Dr Abdus Salam Khan won the Nobel Prize for physics and, as a proud Pakistani, accepted his award in national dress.

But he was an Ahmadi so there is no monument to celebrate him, no universities named after him.

The word “Muslim” on his gravestone has been erased. Even the town he is buried in has been renamed in an attempt to erase our collective memory.

This hatred was evident in the reactions to the massacre.

TV channels were more obsessed with making sure that in their broadcasts Ahmadi mosques were called “places of worship”.

When you refuse to call a place of worship by its proper name, you are implying that it’s not a mosque, it’s not a church, it’s not a synagogue, it’s a place where godless people do godless things.

And all the various Islamic political parties, whose leaders often refuse to pray together, are united on this.

When Pakistan’s main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif used the phrase “our brothers” for the murdered Ahmadis, leaders from 11 political parties came together to condemn him and threatened to issue a fatwa declaring him a heretic.

Over the last three decades the siege has been so palpable that those Ahmadis who couldn’t afford to emigrate have taken to hiding their identity.

If you want to destroy someone in public life it’s enough to drop a hint that they are Ahmadi.

In the 1980s, the former chief minister of Punjab and current federal minister didn’t attend his own mother’s funeral because there were rumours that she was an Ahmadi.

When the funerals of the massacred Ahmadis took place there were no officials, no politicians present.

Pakistan’s liberal bloggers and some English-language columnists did write along the lines that Ahmadi blood is on our hands.

Others were adamant that it was yet another Friday, yet another massacre by the Pakistani Taliban, and we should just fight this sort of terrorism and leave the sectarian debates alone.

Two incidents in the past week made me realise how pathological our response was. At a vigil to mark the massacre, where a handful of people had turned up, a passer-by asked me “Are you an Ahmadi?” My own loud and aggressive denial surprised me.

Then an Ahmadi friend whose father survived the Lahore massacre wrote to me saying: “You know we have been living like this for decades. [Did] something like this have to happen for you to speak up?”

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8744092.stm

Pakistan mosque attacks in Lahore kill scores

---BBC Bews, UK

Last Updated: Monday, 8 August, 2005, 11:41 GMT 12:41 UK

Pakistan mosque attacks in Lahore kill scores

Eyewitness Nadeem Khalifa describes the scenes inside one of the mosques

Gunmen have launched simultaneous raids on two mosques of the minority Ahmadi Islamic sect in Lahore, killing more than 80 people, Pakistani police say.

The attackers fired guns and threw grenades at worshippers during Friday prayers. Three militants later blew themselves up with suicide vests.

Pakistani forces have secured both buildings, but are still searching for militants who fled the scene.

Lahore has been the scene of a string of brazen attacks.

It is unclear who carried out the attacks, but suspicion has fallen on the Pakistani Taliban, Ali Dayan Hassan of Human Rights Watch told the BBC.

Mr Hassan said the worshippers were “easy targets” for militant Sunni groups who consider the Ahmadis to be infidels.

Suicide vests

Police said several attackers held people hostage briefly inside the mosque in the heavily built-up Garhi Shahu area.

AT THE SCENE

Orla Guerin BBC News, Lahore The attackers shot anyone who moved, according to survivors like Syed Rashid Rahim, a lawyer we interviewed at the hospital. He survived three hours trapped in the mosque, and three bullet wounds. The hardest thing to bear, he said, was the brutal killing of a boy aged 13 or 14, which happened in front of his eyes. His father was behind him, sheltering behind a column. He asked him for water and the son was offering him water. While he was drinking, these two people came in and they shot him point blank. “I cannot forget that,” he said, fighting back tears. “I thought they would spare him, but they did not.”

Some took up positions on top of the minarets, and fired assault rifles at police engaged in gunfights with militants below.

Three of the attackers blew themselves up with suicide vests packed with explosives when police tried to enter the mosque, officials said.

Police were searching for at least two militants who managed to flee the scene.

Police took control of the other mosque in the nearby Model Town area after a two-hour gunfight.

Gunmen opened fire indiscriminately at the mosque, before security forces managed to kill one militant and capture two others, eyewitnesses told the BBC.

They were said to be armed with AK-47 rifles, shotguns and grenades.

Persecuted minority

Sectarian attacks have been carried out by various militant groups in Punjab province, and across Pakistan in the past.

While the Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim and follow all Islamic rituals, they were declared non-Muslim in Pakistan in 1973, and in 1984 they were legally barred from proselytising or identifying themselves as Muslims.

WHO ARE THE AHMADIS?

♦ A minority Islamic sect founded in 1889, Ahmadis believe their own founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908, was a prophet ♦ This is anathema to most Muslims who believe the last prophet was Muhammad, who died in 632 ♦ Most Ahmadi followers live in the Indian subcontinent ♦ Ahmadis have been the subject of sectarian attacks and persecution in Pakistan and elsewhere ♦ In 1974 the Pakistani government declared the sect non-Muslim

Members of the community have often been mobbed, or gunned down in targeted attacks, says the BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad.

But this is the first time their places of worship have suffered daring and well co-ordinated attacks that bear the mark of Taliban militants, our correspondent adds.

The London-based Ahmadi association said the attacks were the culmination of years of “unpoliced persecution” against the Ahmadis.

“Today’s attack is the most cruel and barbaric,” the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community UK said in a statement.

The Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Shahbaz Sharif, expressed “heartfelt sorrow” over the killings.

“No condemnation, however strong, will be enough for these incidents,” he said.

US state department spokesman Philip Crowley said Washington also condemned the “brutal violence against innocent people”.

 Lahore Mosques on map

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/10181380.stm