NGOs suggest reviews on Ahmadiyah bans

NATIONAL Fri, 03/11/2011 9:50 PM

NGOs suggest reviews on Ahmadiyah bans

Bagus BT Saragih, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A number of NGOs concerned with human rights suggested Friday that civil society file a legal lawsuit and judicial reviews against regulations and decrees issued by local leaders banning Ahmadiyah.

“Any efforts to ban Ahmadiyah followers from conducting their rituals are against, not only the 1945 Constitution, but also a number of laws,” Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violences (Kontras) coordinator Haris Azhar told a press conference.

He cited Article 28 of the Constitution, which guarantees every citizens’ religious rights.

Regulations made by provincial, regency and city administrations can be reviewed by the Supreme Court if considered not in line with higher regulations or laws.

Regulations in the form of decrees made governors, regents or mayors can be annulled by the State Administrative Court in all cities as well as regental and provincial capitals.

As of March 2011, there are 12 local administrations which have issued regulations banning Ahmadiyah, according to NGOs. The latest regions include East Java province, West Java province, South Sumatra province, Pandeglang regency and Samarinda municipality.

A number of laws considered as assurance for Ahmadiyah to exist in Indonesia included the 1999 Law on Human Rights and the 2006 Law on the Ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Fajri Nursyamsi from the Center for Legal and Policy Studies said.

Most of the local bans on Ahmadiyah were made based on the 1965 Blasphemy Law, he said. “The law is already too old and no longer in line with the current situation.

Last year, a number of NGOs filed a judicial review with the Constitutional Court to challenge the 1965 Law. The court, however, rejected the request and upheld the law.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/03/11/ngos-suggest-reviews...

Kontras accuses police of publicity stun

NATIONAL Mon, 03/07/2011 1:13 AM

Kontras accuses police of publicity stun

The Jakarta Post

JAKARTA: The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) fears a police move to name three police officers suspects in a planned attack on Ahmadiyah followers in Cikeusik was merely a ploy to shore up public support.

In February, a hard-line mob attacked Ahmadis in Cikeusik, Pandeglang, Banten, murdering three Ahmadis and seriously injuring several others.

“Suspects from the groups that took part in the attack should not have been named,” Kontras coordinator Haris Azhar said, adding that he feared the move was merely cosmetic.

Haris said that it would be unwise for the police to only publicly disclose the total number of suspects they had arrested without identifying the mastermind behind the incident.

“Don’t probe only those involved in the attack. The police must arrest those behind the attack,” he said.

The National Police on Friday named three Cikeusik Police officers suspects for negligence resulting in loss of life in the attack, a violation of the Criminal Code.

The police have so far named 12 suspects in the incident, as well as one Ahmadi.

The fallout from the incident has seen four high-ranking police officers removed from their posts while 37 Cikeusik and Pandeglang Police officers are also undergoing questioning in connection to the attack. — JP

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/03/07/kontras...stun.html

Minister’s Call to Outlaw Ahmadiyah Angers Non-Governmental Organizations

Jakarta

Minister’s Call to Outlaw Ahmadiyah Angers Non-Governmental Organizations

Dessy Sagita & Anita Rachman | September 01, 2010

Jakarta. Aghast by Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali’s controversial statements advocating the banning of the Ahmadiyah sect, a number of nongovernmental organizations on Wednesday said they would author a letter of protest asking the minister to clarify his statement.

The Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy, the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH) and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) were reacting to Suryadharma’s statements earlier this week that Ahmadiyah, a controversial Islamic movement, was not Muslim, and therefore saw nothing wrong in declaring that it was time for Ahmadiyah to be banned.

Suryadharma told House of Representatives hearings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday that Ahmadiyah must be stopped because it has angered mainstream Muslims in Indonesia.

He said that Ahmadiyah has disrupted interreligious peace, and if their activities were not banned immediately the potential for conflict would escalate.

“Every choice has a consequence, but I think the most suitable choice is to disband Ahmadiyah completely and not to let them do their activities,” the minister said during Tuesday’s hearing.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos, Setara deputy chairman, told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday that Suryadharma’s statements could easily be interpreted as a justification for radical Islamic groups to attack Ahmadiyah members and prevent them from practicing their religion.

“Because Suryadharma’s statement was made shortly after National Police Chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri made his statements [on Sunday] that violent mass organizations should not be tolerated, it seems like the Minister is trying to use [Bambang’s statement] for his political maneuver,” he said, explaining that the minister could be trying to paint Ahmadiyah as an organization that also needed to be banned.

Bonar also said that Suryadharma’s stance against Ahmadiyah could trigger suspicions that he was using Bambang’s statement for his party’s gain. Suryadharma is from the United Development Party (PPP), one of the smaller parties in the ruling coalition.

Bonar said the memorandum of protest the organizations would send would ask for clarification as to whether the minister’s statement reflected his own political stance, or represented the policy of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in general.

“We don’t know if the matter regarding Ahmadiyah had been discussed in the cabinet meeting,” he said

“If the Minister’s statement was his personal political stance, he should retract the statement immediately and make a public apology,” he added.

Bonar said that Suryadharma’s claim that he would wait until after Ramadan to make any further comments regarding Ahmadiyah sounded like a threat to sect members.

Suryadharma denied that his statement would encourage radical organizations, like the hard-line Islamic Defender Front (FPI) and the Betawi Community Forum (FBR), to attack Ahmadiyah.

“It’s not a legitimation for anarchy, but there has been a consensus that Ahmadiyah is not allowed to spread its practice because it’s wrong,” he said, adding that Muslims should not tolerate any party that would ruin Islam’s reputation.

A 2008 decree by the Religious Affairs Ministry, the Home Affairs Ministry and the Attorney General’s Office decreed Ahmadiyah a deviant sect.

Though the decree stopped short of banning the sect completely, it banned its members from publicly practicing their faith and spreading their beliefs or proselytizing.

Members of Ahmadiyah, founded in India in 1889, hold that the group’s founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was the last prophet, a belief that contradicts a tenet of Islam that reserves that position for the Prophet Muhammad.

The members of Ahmadiyah are already familiar with violence and attacks against them.

In February 2006, thousands of mainstream Muslims in West Nusa Tenggara burned homes belonging to Ahmadiyah members in Lombok.

The incidents left as many as 137 people homeless, all of whom had to be escorted by police officers to a temporary shelter in Mataram, the provincial capital.

On Aug. 9 this year, some 200 people rallied in front of an Ahmadiyah mosque in Surabaya, demanding the government shut it down.

They ended up vandalizing the mosque by dismantling the signs at its gate.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe

URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/ministers-cal...tions/394109

Planned Ahmadiyah ban ‘humiliating’

HEADLINES Wed, 09/01/2010 9:37 AM

Planned Ahmadiyah ban ‘humiliating’

Arghea Desafti Hapsari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Human rights activists have described Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali’s proposal to disband the Ahmadiyah congregation as a “setback” and a national “humiliation”.

Rafendi Djamin, Indonesia’s representative to ASEAN’s Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that Suryadharma’s statement was a setback and was counter to the country’s commitment to religious freedom.

The minister will inflame hard-line groups to commit even more violence with such a statement, he added.

Suryadharma said on Monday that Ahmadiyah “must be disbanded immediately” because it violated a 2008 joint ministerial decree that stated that Ahmadiyah can not propagate its teachings.

The process of dissolving the group will be gradual, Suryadharma said Tuesday, as quoted by kompas.com.

“We will not abruptly disband it. The process will begin with the enforcement of the joint ministerial decree,” he said.

Neither Suryadharma nor the ministry provided evidence supporting the minister’s allegations.

Rafendi said the planned ban of Ahmadiyah was inimical to the country’s efforts to uphold the principles of human rights and democracy.

President Susilo Bambang Yu-dhoyono previously told an audience at Harvard University in the US that Indonesia “has shown that Islam, modernity and democracy — plus economic growth and national unity — can be a powerful partnership.”

Yudhoyono also said that the country wanted to ensure that tolerance and respect for religious freedom became part of its “trans-generational DNA” and that Indonesia was a powerful example of how Islam, democracy and modernity can go “hand in hand”.

Jamaah Ahmadiyah, which has 200,000 followers in Indonesia, has also been the target of attacks from hard-line Islamic groups, most recently in Manis Lor, Kuningan regency when three were injured.

Hard-line Muslim organizations have demanded that the group be banned.

Home Affairs Ministry spokesman Saut Situmorang told the Post that a mass organization could be banned if it was proven to have disturbed the public order or posed a threat to national unity.

Saut said if the Religious Affairs Ministry decided to ban Ahmadiyah group, the Home Affairs Ministry would have to apply the 1985 Law on Mass Organizations, which provides a mechanism to disband groups.

Nurkholis Hidayat, the chairman of the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation, asked if the Ahmadiyah needed to be banned under the law. “I think the FPI [Islam Defenders Front] meets more of the requirements,” he said.

Rafendi said banning Ahmadiyah would justify more violence. “What [Suryadharma] said concerns an inalienable right [of the Ahmadiyah members] to hold religious beliefs that cannot be denied in any kind of situation,” he added.

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/09/01/planned-ah...E2%80%99.html

Religious Affairs Minister’s remarks on Ahmadiyah deplored

NATIONAL Tue, 08/31/2010 12:51 PM

Religious Affairs Minister’s remarks on Ahmadiyah deplored

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Activist of the National Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) Usman Hamid deplored on Tuesday a statement by Minister of Religious Affair Suryadharma Ali that the Jamaah Ahmadiyah faith – who claim to be Muslim – had to be broken up as followers violated regulations and were not Muslims.

Suryadharma was criticized for not being able to show his good statesmanship.

“He thought as if it were a simple problem,” Usman said in Jakarta as quoted by kompas.com. He expressed fear that the minister’s improper statement would spark fresh attacks against Ahmadiyah followers by certain irresponsible groups.

According to Usman, Suryadharma should have emulated late president Soekarno in connection with the existence of Ahmadiyah.

Soekarno did not agree with the Ahmadiyah group, but he still admitted it as one of the nation’s children, Usman said.

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/08/31/religio...h-deplored.html

Public Debate Targets Police Inaction on Religious Violence

---Jakarta Globe, Indonesia

February 16, 2010
Ulma Haryanto

Public Debate Targets Police Inaction on Religious Violence

Alleged police indifference to violence targeting religious minorities was questioned on Tuesday during a public discussion in Jakarta held by civil-society organizations about the prospects for reform.

“Violence in the name of religion often happens in front of the police. But they just stood there while somebody was being flushed with acid,” said Malik, a member of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).

“How could they just stand there while a church was being vandalized, a mosque being burned? It seems that the police officers were impotent when facing such tragedies.”

In response, Insp. Gen. Imam Soejarwo, National Police chairman for bureaucratic reform, said the police saw everyone as equal before the law.

“If we did nothing, it’s because we were concerned about the possibility of bigger calamities if we jumped in to intervene,” he said, adding that situations may have made it impossible for the police to take firmer action.

A report released this month by the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace revealed that 200 violations against freedom of worship were reported to state agencies in 2009.

On Monday, members of the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) forcibly closed Galilea Church in Bekasi, alleging that the congregation had been trying to convert Muslim residents. Police were only seen guarding the premises on Monday after the incident.

Syafi’i Anwar, executive director of the International Center for Islam and Pluralism, told the Jakarta Globe that police officers are often indecisive when it comes to such acts.

“They think that it would violate human rights if they did something,” he said. “They also tend to think that the Indonesian Ulema Council [MUI] should take care of it. Police officers in the field should be given the understanding that violence, even though based on religion, is in itself a violation of human rights, so it has to be stopped.

“The violence toward the Ahmadiyah and churches is not right in any way, and the police should not just stand there because some religious majority said the other faiths are wrong.”

Setara’s report identified the Ahmadiyah sect of Islam as the most persecuted community in the nation, victimized in 33 cases recorded in 2009.

Jakarta Police spokesman Chief Comr. Boy Rafli Amar said the reform strategy included using police “as an instrument to support human rights.”

Bambang Widodo Umar, a former police officer who is now an independent police expert, said reform has to be applied to the police education system.

“In my time, we never heard of education about minority rights, gender equality. We heard of it but we never really learned anything about it,” he said.

“This is why the concept of ‘human security’ [instead of the old state security] has to be taught in police academies to respond to the challenges of becoming a modern democratic country.”

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/public-deb...-on-religious-violence/359066