The dying canary and Indonesia’s religious freedom

OPINIONMon, 10/03/2011 7:57 PM

The dying canary and Indonesia’s religious freedom

Tobias Basuki, Jakarta

“Religious liberty is the proverbial canary in the mine,” according to Doug Bandouw, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Canaries are often used by miners as an early-warning signal for poisonous gases. When the small birds stop singing and suffocate, miners know toxic gases have polluted the area and something is wrong.

The right of religious freedom for small groups within a country is a vital indicator of the health of society. Religious freedom is the most basic freedom. Without it, it is doubtful that the lives and dignity of its citizens is truly respected.

Religious minorities in Indonesia have recently been systematically and aggressively silenced. Repression is allegedly perpetrated by religious extremists. The state is not without blame either.

The state partakes in the oppression of its own citizens, first through oversight and omission, and second by undertaking discriminatory actions and policies. The Blasphemy Law and a joint ministerial regulation on the Ahmadiyah minority Islamic sect are proof.

Two cases illustrate the dire condition of religious freedom in Indonesia.

First is the plight of the Ahmadis. The Ahmadis were part of our archipelago’s society even before independence and partook in the independence movement. The sect has now been cast aside and discriminated against.

Physical and verbal attacks against them have intensified in the past five years. One attack culminated in the slaughter of three members in Cikeusik, Banten.

Adding greater madness to the brutality was the gross injustice of our judiciary.

Those who participated in the vicious attacks were sentenced to jail for terms as little as three to six months. Deden Sudjana, whose house the Ahmadis were protecting, received a harsher sentence than those convicted of instigating the violence, who were hailed as heroes upon their release.

The Ahmadis understandably decided not to pursue and prolong the case considering the amount of prejudice and unfair treatment they have had to endure.

It was the first sign that the canary was not doing well.

The Blasphemy Law and the logic used to apply it is schizophrenic. Here is an example: The Blasphemy Law prohibits the existence of religions that resemble a major religion and also prohibits programming based on such religions from being broadcast.

In one city, an Ahmadiyah mosque was attacked and closed because it had a sign identifying it as an Ahmadiyah place of worship. The sign was considered “broadcasting” under the law. In another city, an Ahmadiyah mosque was attacked and closed because it had no signs on it and was accused of luring Muslims inside for conversion.

There are some well-intentioned arguments that state the Ahmadis should declare a new religion to avoid further prosecution. But the same logic would immediately put them in the crosshairs again.

The sect’s similarity to Islam puts it at odds with the law and prejudice against them. Labeling is not the issue; it is the bigoted view and actions of the few that are the main problems.

Another poignant example is the case of GKI Taman Yasmin. The congregation obtained a permit to build a church in July 2006. The construction, however, was stopped in 2008 by the head of Bogor’s Urban Planning and Landscaping Agency.

The church challenged the decision in court, which annulled the suspension issued by the city.

The annulment was disregarded and the church took its plight to the Supreme Court, which also ruled in favor of the church. Obstinately, the Bogor government under Mayor Diani Budiarto has chosen to blatantly disobey the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Opposition to the church’s construction is based on feeble grounds and outright ridiculous statements involving alleged counterfeit signatures, obstructing businesses and the infamous “no church should be on a street named after a Muslim”.

The reasoning proposed by the officials begs a serious question about the real motives behind the church ban. I attended one of the outdoor services conducted by the congregation in front of the sealed church.

None of the “public inconvenience” accusations held true. Even with a large number of visitors and an outdoor service, traffic was barely disturbed. There were no visible or plausible disturbances to businesses or the community.

However, one thing is clear. The mayor has broken the law on several accounts. First, he ignored court rulings, including a ruling from the Supreme Court. Second, the city violated the Regional Autonomy Law, which states that religion is the jurisdiction of the central government, not the local government.

Last but most flagrantly, Diani violated the Constitution and his oath of office. His repeated disregard of a court decision has made him a law breaker. The mayor should be impeached at the very least.

The canary is not dead … yet.

Indonesia as a nation faces two towers of evil. The first is epidemic corruption. It is like anemia. It is fatal, widespread and will kill us slowly. The second is radicalism and narrow-minded bigotry. Many say the radicals are few. It is true, but these few let loose will wound the nation and bleed us.

It is like a flesh wounds. It may not necessarily be fatal, but with a cancer draining our blood, a small wound can worsen and break us apart.

The writer is a graduate of Northern Illinois University and a lecturer at Pelita Harapan University, Tangerang.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/10/03/the-dying...freedom.html

Indonesia’s ‘individual jihadists’ gaining ground

By Agence France-Presse, Updated: 9/27/2011

Indonesia’s ‘individual jihadists’ gaining ground

There was nothing sophisticated about the suicide bombing at an Indonesian church Sunday – using homemade explosives packed with nails, nuts and bolts, the bomber killed only himself.

National Police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam holds up photographs of Ahmad Yosepa Hayat, the Bethel Injil Church bomber, during a press conference in Jakarta on September 27, 2011.

The attack was in stark contrast to the country’s deadliest terrorist incident nine years ago, when the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) killed 202 people, mostly foreigners, in the highly planned Bali bombings.

With networks such as JI suffering serious damage in the face of a remarkably successful crackdown by Indonesian security forces, a new generation of loosely-connected jihadists has been left to step up.

“The weakening of the large organisations is something positive. Indonesia has done a pretty damn good job of basic law enforcement,” International Crisis Group analyst Sidney Jones told AFP.

“The chances are less likely you’ll get an attack of that magnitude,” she added, referring to the Bali bombings.

Instead the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation has seen a spate of smaller attacks on minority religious groups both from bombers and in incidents of mob violence.

Details that have emerged about Sunday’s attack indicate that these small groups are finding strength and solidarity in their loose alliances.

Police identified Sunday’s bomber as 31-year-old Ahmad Yosepa Hayat, a member of Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), which was founded by militant spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir.

Hayat was sitting among the Bethel Injil Church congregation in Solo, Central Java, when he stood up and detonated a bomb strapped to his stomach, killing himself and wounding 27 others.

Hayat was already on Indonesia’s most-wanted list for his role in another suicide attack five months ago in far-away Cirebon, 300 kilometres (186 miles) east of Jakarta, where another bomber attacked a police mosque.

That incident bore striking similarities to Sunday’s attack, with the bomber managing to kill only himself, and the explosives containing nails, nuts and bolts.

In recent years Indonesia’s police anti-terror unit, Detachment 88, has killed some of the country’s most-wanted militants, including Noordin Top, believed to have played a role in every major terrorist attack in the country’s recent history, and Dulmatin, who had a hand in the Bali bombings.

JI’s spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir was sentenced in June to 15 years’ imprisonment for funding a militant training camp in Aceh on Sumatra island, where special autonomy allows the region to implement some sharia laws.

But the attacks on religious minorities and “enemies of Islam” over the past year have been carried out by new cells – with old ties – and mostly made up of young men from vulnerable communities.

In an editorial, the Jakarta Globe said there was “no shortage of young people willing to take up the jihadist cause” and warned Indonesia is heading down a “very dangerous path”.

Jones said there are seven or eight known small groups operating in Solo alone, which are “all in communication with one another” and beginning to merge their agendas.

“Every time we’ve seen one of these smaller networks emerge, there have been at least one or two members with links to older networks,” she said.

“They’re harder to detect than bigger networks. They understood it was dangerous for them to use mobile phones to communicate, which makes it much more difficult for police to track them down.”

Critics of the government say it has done nothing to combat sectarian attacks, which while less deadly, have seen worrying incidents of mob violence.

A court sentenced 12 Muslim radicals to just a few months in jail for an attack on members of the minority Muslim sect Ahmadiyah, in Cikeusik in West Java in February.

The machete-wielding mob clubbed, hacked and stoned three defenceless men to death in front of police.

Victims who survived the attack were handed longer sentences than their assailants for “provoking violence”.

On September 12, on Indonesia’s remote Maluku islands, violence erupted in the provincial capital Ambon after rumours spread through text message that a Muslim motorcycle taxi driver had been attacked and killed by Christians.

“The government didn’t take strong action in Ambon, so this has created a wake-up call to jihadis to do something,” the Institute for International Peacebuilding security analyst Noor Huda Ismail said.

“We need to have transparent and accountable law enforcement. Of course if Indonesia doesn’t enforce the law these groups will keep doing these attacks.”

© Agence France-Presse
URL: http://news.malaysia.msn.com/...aspx?cp-documentid=5319251

Indonesians Feel Ahmadis Should Be Protected as Fellow Countrymen: Poll

NEWS

Indonesians Feel Ahmadis Should Be Protected as Fellow Countrymen: Poll

Ronna Nirmala | September 09, 2011

FPI members protesting in front of Ahmadiyah secretariat in Makassar. They urged the Ahmadiyah members to stop their activities. (Antara Photo/Yusran Uccang)

Most Indonesians oppose the use of violence against the minority Muslim sect Ahmadiyah and think its followers here are their compatriots and should not be facing oppression, a survey by a human rights watchdog showed on Thursday.

Many respondents also said the deadly February attack in Cikeusik, Banten, occured because the government allowed it to happen, the Setara Institute for Freedom and Democracy said.

When asked who should be held accountable for the Cikeusik attack, in which three Ahmadis were killed, 33 percent of respondents said: “I don’t know.”

Another 32 percent blamed the government and security officials for doing little to prevent it, and 18 percent blamed the Ahmadiyah as they spread “blasphemous teachings.” The remaining 17 percent blamed the hard-line Muslims who carried out the attack, the survey said.

“The poll also indicates that almost 70 percent of the respondents consciously said that whatever happened, Ahmadiyah members are their fellow countrymen — aside from their differences in interpreting religion,” said Ismail Hasani, a researcher with Setara.

The survey was conducted among about 3,000 respondents in 27 districts in nine provinces, including Jakarta, West Java, Yogyakarta, East Java and West Nusa Tenggara.

A majority of respondents, about 60 percent, said they had no idea about what Ahmadiyah teachings entailed.

“Although some [Muslim] respondents refused to call Ahmadiyah followers their brothers, they agreed the attack in Cikeusik should never have happened,” said Bonar Tigor Naipospos, the deputy chairman of Setara. In fact, only a small portion of those questioned said the Cikeusik incident was caused by differences over religious beliefs.

“Some of them believed that it happened because of a fabricated issue from a third party, not related to religious interests,” Bonar said.

Two months ago, the Serang District Court in Banten convicted 12 hard-line Muslims for the Cikeusik attack but sentenced them to a maximum of just six months in jail.

Deden Sujana, the former head of security for the Indonesian Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI), was a sentenced to six months in jail by the same court last month. He was found guilty of disobeying police officers who had ordered him and about a dozen other Ahmadis to leave the house they occupied just before the violence broke out. Deden was badly injured in the attack.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/ahmadi-victim-recalls.../462886

Attack on Ahmadiyah condemned by most, survey reveals

NATIONALThu, 09/08/2011 8:26 PM

Attack on Ahmadiyah condemned by most, survey reveals

The Jakarta Post

According to Setara Institute, most Indonesians condemn the attack on Ahmadiyah in Cikeusik, Banten, West Java, which occurred earlier this year.

“As many as 82.3 percent of the respondents said they disapproved the attack, 7.9 were in favor, while 9.8 did not give a statement,” Setara Institute researcher Ismail Hasani told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

The research on people’s perception of Ahmadiyah was conducted in 47 regencies of 10 provinces in the country from July 10 to 25. It comprised 3,000 respondents from various religions, but 90 percent were Muslims

Ismail said the research also found out that 68.2 respondents regarded Ahmadiyah as fellow citizens, 11.9 percent did not regard them as fellow citizens. Twenty percent did not respond.

“The results bring us a hope that tolerance still exists in this country,” he said.

Yet, he said the research also found that more than 40 percent of respondents were in favor of a joint ministerial decree (SKB) and the Indonesian Ulema Councils (MUI) edict declaring Ahmadiyah be disbanded because it was heretic and blasphemous.

The joint decree was issued by the religious affairs and home ministers, and the attorney general in 2008 in efforts to regulate Ahmadiyah followers’ religious practice.

Ismail said people’s inter-religious tolerance in this country was at a good level, “But they can hardly accept others of the same religion, because of a slight variation in beliefs.”

On February 6, Ahmadiyah followers were set upon by angered residents who objected to their beliefs, which they say go against “pure” Islam.

Hundreds of people attacked 21 Ahmadis, killing three of them and injuring at least five, while ransacking and setting a house belonging to Ahmadis on fire.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/09/08/attack-ahmadiyah...reveals.html

Yudhoyono says Indonesia is tolerant nation

By Agence France-Presse, Updated: 8/16/2011

Indonesia sends ‘chilling message’ in mob trial: HRW

World

Indonesia sends ‘chilling message’ in mob trial: HRW

July 28, 2011AFP

Two days after a Muslim lynch mob killed members of a minority Islamic sect two churches have been set alight. — AFP Photo

SERANG: An Indonesian court on Thursday sentenced religious fanatics who killed three members of a minority Muslim sect in a frenzied mob attack to between three and six months in jail.

Dani bin Misra, a 17-year-old who smashed a victim’s skull with a stone, received three months for manslaughter.

Idris bin Mahdani, who led the mob of more than 1,000 Muslims in the February attack, was convicted of illegal possession of a machete and received five months and 15 days in jail.

Twelve people stood trial but none faced murder charges in what human rights activists said was a travesty of justice in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.

The unprovoked violence against the Ahmadiyah sect members in Cikeusik, western Java, was one of the most horrific in a long line of attacks on the minority group in Indonesia in recent years.

A secretly filmed video of the attack brought religious violence in Indonesia under the international spotlight, and provoked condemnation from the United States, Italy and international rights groups.

“When the Cikeusik video went viral, people around the world were shocked and appalled by the savagery of the mob kicking and slashing three men to death,” Human Rights Watch Deputy Director for Asia Phil Robertson said.

“But instead of charging the defendants with murder and other serious crimes, prosecutors came up with an almost laughable list of ‘slap-on-the wrist’ charges.

“The Cikeusik trial sends the chilling message that attacks on minorities like the Ahmadiyah will be treated lightly by the legal system. This is a sad day for justice in Indonesia.”

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved
URL: www.dawn.com/2011/07/28/indonesia-sends...hrw.html

The Thinker: Faith Talks Silenced

OPINION

The Thinker: Faith Talks Silenced

Nicholaus Prasetya | January 17, 2011

Last week, Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali sparked debate when he said “there were no religious conflicts during 2010” in Indonesia.

But it doesn’t take much to see that the minister’s comment was far from the truth.

Last week, for instance, members of a hard-line Muslim group forced 15 people in Surabaya to halt a discussion on religious tolerance.

The Surabaya incident was a continuation of religious tussles from last year, including disputes over permits to worship and the forced closure of churches.

It had the look of numerous conflicts before it, having been perpetrated by intolerant groups whose moves were, in the end, supported by local authorities. In this case, police in Surabaya ultimately forced the meeting to end.

The forum was disbanded for two main reasons.

First, members of the Ahmadiyah community, a minority Muslim sect, were at the talks, according to news portal Detik.com. Their mere presence anywhere is enough for critics to launch protests or other forms of intimidation.

The other reason is an old excuse: The 15 participants apparently lacked a permit to hold such a forum.

The country is supposed to celebrate diversity, even when it comes to religion. Ahmadiyah members have rights that should be protected by the government.

However, many of the sect’s members live in fear — and they’re not the only ones.

The Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace recorded 28 attacks and rights violations against Christian communities across the archipelago in the first seven months of last year, up from 18 cases in 2009 and 17 in 2008.

The Wahid Institute cited 196 cases last year of violence based on intolerance and religious discrimination, an increase of almost 50 percent from a year earlier.

The Moderate Muslim Society, moreover, said at least 81 cases of religious conflict occurred last year — an increase of more than 30 percent from 2009.

In such a country where the government fails to ensure the rights of all its citizens, communication becomes integral to avoiding clashes such as the ones we have seen or heard about in the news.

But is there still room for religious tolerance if criticism is often silenced?

The German sociologist and philosopher Jurgen Habermas theorized that a rational society would evolve through the development of economy, technology or capital.

But he also said communication and information exchange — not the economy, as others such as Marx posited — was the true driving force of society.

Seen in this context, the Surabaya forum’s dispersal is particularly regrettable because participants were trying to engage in discourse on the very subject of engaging in discourse.

Ideally, peaceful communication means no group dominates the dialogue, giving all participants — with the goal of reaching a consensus — the chance to speak their minds, regardless of their status in the community.

Before the breakup of the talks, the Ahmadiyah members at the Surabaya forum were given a fair chance to share their thoughts. For once, they were not silenced by rowdy protests or government sanctions. They were not forced to follow what other groups wanted them to do.

The Ahmadis were there to talk about how to foster a better environment for interfaith harmony in the country.

Surely the meeting in Surabaya was a welcome break from the world where stigmatization, threats and repression are part of their daily lives. They are Indonesians, but strangers in their own land.

This begs the question: Why is it that groups of hard-liners do not participate in such forums instead of cracking down on such peaceful initiatives?

It is clear that, as a country with a Muslim majority, mainstream Islamic groups should be involved in the dialogue.

But resisting the urge to advance their own interests should be a prerequisite before they can take part. Ideal communication eschews the supremacy of one group over another and focuses on finding long-term solutions to conflicts through building consensus.

Interreligious conflicts should be bridged by communication.

They cannot be solved by force.

Thus, it is everyone’s duty to protect open lines of communication wherever they have been established.

Last year, it was clear to all — save perhaps for our religious affairs minister — just how common acts of intolerance were.

Should we expect the same this year?

We will if the rights to free speech and religious freedom are at the mercy of those who shut out ideas and beliefs contrary to their own.

Nicholaus Prasetya is currently a student at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB)

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/hard...activists/416885

Hard-Liners, Police Shut Down Tolerance Talk in Surabaya: Activists

NEWS

Hard-Liners, Police Shut Down Tolerance Talk in Surabaya: Activists

Amir TejoAmir Tejo | December 15, 2010

Members of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) protesting against the Q! Film Festival in Jakarta last year. Pluralism advocates said hard-liners also disrupted a talk on religious tolerance in Surabaya on Thursday. (AP Photo/Irwin Fedriansyah)

Surabaya. Police and Islamic hard-liners on Thursday disbanded a discussion on religious tolerance in Surabaya, said members of a humanitarian watchdog who were in attendance.

Members of the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy, a group that advocates for pluralism and freedom of worship, said they were participating in the discussion at a coffee shop in the Inna Simpang Hotel with groups including Surabaya Legal Aid and members of the minority Ahmadiyah sect.

They said the meeting was disrupted by dozens of members of a group calling itself the Warring Defenders of Islam (LPI).

Setara activists said Sasmito, a man identifying himself as the head of the LPI, told the attendees the discussion was illegal and would have to be disbanded.

Shortly afterward, the activists said, Surabaya Police arrived and conferred with the LPI, after which the hard-liners left.

The tolerance discussion resumed, but police returned and ordered an end to the gathering, Setara members said.

“We request that you stop with this discussion, because you have not informed us that you were going to hold it,” a police officer said, according to Setara official Bonar Tigor Naipospos.

Bonar said he demanded police tell them what law required police permission to hold a meeting.

“This was no demonstration which requires a permit. This was a meeting involving 15 people at a hotel. Why were we stopped from meeting?” Bonar told the Jakarta Globe.

He said police told him the meeting could pose a security risk because it was held not far from a building where President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would be staying during a working visit.

“This was a fabricated reason,” Bonar said.

“Yudhoyono’s visit anywhere would have extraordinary security. This was just a discussion.” He added that organizers had sent a text message to East Java Police Chief Insp. Gen. Badrodin Haiti informing him of the meeting, but that he hadn’t responded.

“We did not meet to conduct anarchic activities or to attack the country,” Bonar said.

“We met here to find a resolution for an ongoing problem. To find a resolution we must listen to all parties involved. This was meant to be positive.”

Members of the gathering said they believed that the hard-liners were connected to the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a fundamentalist group known for forcibly imposing their religious views on others.

Setara Institute founder Hendardi on Thursday said he condemned the police’s failure in stopping hard-liners from disrupting human rights discussions.

“This is a clear threat to our constitutional rights to freely express our opinion,” he said.

“Police in the regions can no longer be separated from radical Islamic organizations, who continue to persecute and intimidate minority communities, including those organizations that fight for the rights of these communities.”

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/hard...surabaya-activists/416885

COMMENT: No to blasphemy laws

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

COMMENT: No to blasphemy laws — Marvi Sirmed

One is amazed at the audacity of the advocates of blasphemy laws, who think of themselves as vigilant guards of not only the Almighty, but religious personages as well, thereby creating an illusion that God and the Prophet (PBUH) might not be able to deal with the blasphemer

It is nothing much, just one more conviction under the Blasphemy Law of Pakistan. This time, it is a woman. Aasia Bibi gets her fate written by an Additional Sessions Court in Nankana Sahib, District Sheikhupura. We have, it seems, successfully saved the honour of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

A simplistic, popular argument in favour of the faulty black laws of blasphemy has been that, as committed Muslims, we cannot let blasphemers get off scot-free. And since the law of the land asks for capital punishment for the crime of blasphemy, it is obligatory to pursue such cases with public vigilance. To an ordinary thinking mind, this increasing insecurity about the honour of Islam, the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and Holy Quran looks ridiculously misplaced. Ever since the blasphemy laws were promulgated in the Indo-Pak subcontinent, they seem to have instigated violence against religious minorities.

Blasphemy accusations were regularly levelled against the Sufi mystics before and during Mughal India. In most of these cases, orthodox schools of religious thought used blasphemy as a pretext for settling other scores. One can see it in the case of Sufi saint Sarmad Shaheed who was beheaded by Aurangzeb, Baba Bulleh Shah who was thrown out of his native Kasur on charges of blasphemy, and even Rahman Baba who was accused of being an atheist and had to defend the conspiracies to oust him from his village, Hazar Khwani, in Mohmand district of the then Peshawar province.

It, however, remained largely an activity of the royal courts to invoke blasphemy against Sufis or political opponents. The scourge of popular vigilantism entered Indian society after the 1860s Blasphemy Law inclusion in the India penal code. There was no looking back after this, especially after Pakistan came into being. The first major case of blasphemy that got public attention and a permanent imprint on the Muslim mind was that of Ilam Din (called Ghazi and Shaheed simultaneously). Ilam Din, as the legend goes, was an ordinary Muslim son of a carpenter and irregular mosque-goer. It was the oratory of the clerics Maulana Ahmed Saeed Dehlvi and Amir-e-Shariat in a protest meeting against the publication of a profane book against Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) that instigated the carpenter’s son to get up, hold up the dagger and stab the publisher to death. This act of murder without any conviction by a court of law (the matter was still sub judice) was hailed by all and sundry, including the entire range of Muslim political leaders. Ilam Din is still revered for this “valour”, “act of piety for sheer love of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)” and for being “a matchless warrior”, as Dr Sir Allama Iqbal was quoted as saying at Ilam Din’s funeral in the Encyclopaedia of World Muslims.

After Pakistan came into being, we had to rely on the excessive use of Islamic symbolism to justify our existence as a separate entity from parent India, and to avoid a further breakdown through the generous provision of religious adhesive to an otherwise multi-ethnic, multi-cultural federation. The Islamisation of laws was an easy tool to adopt that outlook. It was no later than the early 1950s that pogroms against the Hindu population started in Khulna and other parts of East Pakistan, but also the fierce attacks on Ahmedis and Christians in West Pakistan. The existing Blasphemy Law provided an easy solution for pushing minorities against the wall. What is most troublesome is that even in those days popular vigilantism was allowed to let go unchecked, rather it was patronised.

Aasia Bibi’s case is not the only shame Pakistan has had to suffer; we have many such cases to our credit, especially after 1992 when 295-C was further amended to make death the obligatory blasphemy sentence. A cursory look at the data amply shows a sudden surge in blasphemy cases post-1992.

Section 295 of the Pakistan penal code prohibits “injuring or defiling a place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class”. Section 295-A forbids “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs”. Section 295-B puts a bar on “defiling, etc, of the Holy Quran”. Section 295-C forbids the “use of derogatory remarks, etc, in respect of the Holy Prophet (PBUH)”. There is an additional Section 298 that forbids “uttering words, etc, with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings”. Three more sections, Section 298-A (use of derogatory remarks, etc, in respect of holy personages), 298-B (misuse of epithets, descriptions and titles, etc, reserved for certain holy personages or places) and Section 298-C (person of the Ahmedi group, etc, calling himself a Muslim or preaching or propagating his faith) make a further mockery of every principle of justice and equality in a modern state.

The basic problem with these sections is that none of them qualifies and determines the variables like “deliberate” and “malicious” attempts of profanity/defamation. In the backdrop of this ambiguity, the absolute unwanted character of these legislative provisions has not only suppressed the religious minorities manifold, but also given rise to uncontrollable public vigilantism and violence in society.

According to a recent report by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), a total of 964 people had been charged under the Blasphemy Law in Pakistan from 1986 to 2009. Out of these, NCJP says, 479 were Muslims, 340 Ahmedis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus, and 10 others. It may be noted that none of the blasphemy convicts have been executed so far, but 32 people charged with blasphemy have been extra-judicially killed. No serious enquiry into their murders has yet been seen. Many of these murders have either been committed in the custody of police or in front of authorities. But powerful religious groups manage to go scot-free in every murder, thereby strengthening the view that the life of minority citizens has no value and depends on their conduct under sheer suppression by a furious majority.

One is amazed at the audacity of the advocates of blasphemy laws, who think of themselves as vigilant guards of not only the Almighty, but religious personages as well, thereby creating an illusion that God and the Prophet (PBUH) might not be able to deal with the blasphemer and would need the help of Tehrik-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwat and the like. In my view, they themselves are the biggest blasphemers.

It needs to be strongly voiced in every public sphere today that Pakistan, with a majority Muslim population, does not need blasphemy laws. The presence of these laws hints at Muslim insecurity as well of lack of confidence in our own selves. Let us not make laws for the already powerful majority. A blasphemy law without a strong blasphemy libel law is merely a tool of suppression. It is not 295-C that is the problem, it is the way we have written our statute and the way we are shaping our worldview that has become the problem. Root it out before it roots us out. Pakistan cannot afford any more shame.

The writer is a rights activist and independent blogger. She can be reached at marvi@marvisirmed.com

URL: www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\11\23\story_23-11-2010_pg3_3

VIEW: Blasphemy Law

Monday, November 22, 2010

VIEW: Blasphemy Law — Yasser Latif Hamdani

Nothing will cripple the terrorists more decisively than a tolerant, moderate and democratic Pakistan that respects human rights and treats all its citizens equally. No victory would be permanent if such a Pakistan is not achieved

Arundhati Roy committed blasphemy of another kind when she asked the Americans to reconsider their alliance with India without resolving the Kashmir issue in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people. Earlier she had upset many Indians when she claimed that Kashmir was not an integral part of India, a statement that had every gung-ho Indian, those Oscar Wilde’s vicious patriots and there are about a billion of them, baying for her blood, proving that India is and will remain an intolerant society for some time to come.

Well, taking inspiration from her, Pakistanis should also ask President Obama why his government continues to aid a government and a country that continues to trample on the rights of its own people. No I am not talking about India. I am talking about Pakistan, where the state continues to persecute religious minorities by using a law that cannot be justified on any grounds, whether democracy or Islam. In my previous article I briefly touched on the issue of the Blasphemy Law and the verdict against the Christian woman, a mother of five, who was beaten up and then handed over to the police. It is likely that she will get a presidential pardon. That however is not enough. In the process Pakistan has been humiliated for the umpteenth time simply because we want to appease the mullahs as we have done so consistently since 1949, who in any event have declared a war on Pakistan. I had predicted this much in my article.

So when Obama says “we will act if Pakistan is unwilling or unable to act”, he should walk the walk as well. Nothing will cripple the terrorists more decisively than a tolerant, moderate and democratic Pakistan that respects human rights and treats all its citizens equally. No victory would be permanent if such a Pakistan is not achieved. President Obama, the US, the IMF, the World Bank and the entire western world should immediately stop assisting Pakistan in every field from humanitarian aid to military aid till Pakistan puts its house in order. Being a signatory and having ratified the International Convention on Political and Civil Rights, Pakistan is bound by international law and its own constitution to provide all its citizens the right to life and liberty and religious belief unconditionally.

I do not favour arguments referring to religious interpretation, but our Blasphemy Law is untenable even from an Islamic angle. There is nothing in the Holy Quran or even the Hadith that definitively prescribes such a Blasphemy Law. On the contrary we have a clear example set by the Holy Prophet (PBUH) when he forgave his worst enemies and offenders like Hinda. Almost everyone knows the story of the old woman who would throw garbage daily on the path that the Holy Prophet (PBUH) took. When she fell ill, the Holy Prophet (PBUH) went to visit her and nursed her back to health. Less known is the story of another old woman who the Holy Prophet (PBUH) helped by carrying wood to her house. Along the way, not knowing the identity of her helper, she began to speak about the “trouble maker” of Makkah. It was only after their journey was at an end that the Holy Prophet (PBUH) told her that he was the same Muhammad (PBUH) she had spent the greater part of the journey abusing. This was the Holy Prophet’s (PBUH) character. This is why he is referred to as Rahmatul-lil-Alameen or the mercy for all worlds.

Islamic law and jurisprudence is derived from four sources, known as the Usul-ul-Fiqh (fundamentals of the law), i.e. the Holy Quran, the Sunnah, Qiyas (analogy) and Ijma (consensus). The Holy Quran is silent on the issue of blasphemy. The Sunnah of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) seems to suggest the exact opposite. By using Qiyas, one can only conclude that the Blasphemy Law is patently un-Islamic and there is no Ijmah or consensus amongst the scholars of Islam on the punishment of blasphemy.

Islamic civilisation has a rich history of not only tolerating but even celebrating dissent. Needless to say some of the greatest scientists in Islamic history, Al Razi, the father of medicine, and Avicenna, would have been lynched many times over had Islam actually favoured a Blasphemy Law as is currently on the statute books of Pakistan. I am told that our local textbooks on science all have a chapter on the achievements of Muslim scientists and the contribution of Islamic civilisation to science and enlightenment of humanity. It is forgotten that this was achieved by a culture of tolerance, acceptance and openness. In my last column, I quoted the founder of this nation as stating as clearly as possible that bona fide criticisms and investigations into religion must be protected and safeguarded from any Blasphemy Law. So must be the fundamental rights of life, liberty and religious belief.

A nation is its laws ultimately. The intolerance permeating down to every segment of our society is the direct result of the laws that evade common sense and logic. It is therefore time to repeal the Blasphemy Law.

The writer is a lawyer. He also blogs at http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com and can be reached at yasser.hamdani@gmail.com

URL: www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\11\22\story_22-11-2010_pg3_5

Police in Bogor Make Arrest Over Ahmadiyah Violence

INDONESIA

Police in Bogor Make Arrest Over Ahmadiyah Violence

Zaky Pawas, Farouk Arnaz & Arientha Primanita | October 05, 2010

Jakarta. Police have arrested an Ahmadiyah member alleged to have stabbed a teenager during last week’s attack on the minority Islamic sect in Ciampea, Bogor.

Adj. Comr. Zulkarnaen Harahap, Bogor Police’s chief of detectives, said on Monday that three other suspects, who are not members of the sect, were being sought.

The attack on Friday evening saw a mob ransack and burn down houses and a mosque in Cisalada village, home to 600 members of the Ahmadiyah — deemed a deviant sect by many mainstream Muslims.

Zulkarnaen said police had arrested a 30-year-old Ahmadi, identified only as AN, who was accused of stabbing Rendi Apriansyah, 15, during the violence.

“We are charging AN for now under Article 351 of the Criminal Code on aggravated assault, which carries a maximum prison term of five years,” Zulkarnaen told the Jakarta Globe.

Rendi, a student at a Bogor technical school, is being treated at the Bogor Indonesian Red Cross Hospital.

Zulkarnaen said that according to initial police investigations, Rendi was stabbed by AN because the teenager was pelting the Ahmadiyah mosque with stones.

He said Rendi was part of the first wave of attackers, numbering around 200, who broke the windows of At-Taufiq Mosque and set it on fire using Molotov cocktails.

A second group of attackers arrived later and looted 17 homes.

Zulkarnaen said that three other suspects, believed to have been involved in the attack on the mosque and homes, were being sought by police.

The attackers, believed to be residents of neighboring villages, also destroyed a kindergarten, an Islamic elementary school, a car and seven motorcycles during the violence.

“They [the suspects] were involved in the ransacking, looting and burning of the homes of the Ahmadiyah. None of them have been arrested,” Zulkarnaen said.

The four suspects were named after police questioned 20 witnesses, both members of Ahmadiyah and non-Ahmadis.

“We might still question more people. This case is not done yet,” Zulkarnaen said, adding that at least 400 police officers and soldiers had been deployed to Cisalada to prevent a repeat of the violence.

“Acting on instructions issued by West Java Police headquarters, the Ahmadis will receive protection here for an indefinite period, until things calm down,” Zulkarnaen said. Insp. Gen. Sutarman, the newly promoted Jakarta Police chief, acknowledged weaknesses in intelligence-gathering in relation to the Cisalada violence.

Sutarman, the former West Java Police chief, was promoted on Monday, replacing Comr. Gen. Timur Pradopo, who was appointed chief for security management at National Police headquarters and who was also named a candidate for National Police chief.

Sutarman, who had been appointed West Java Police chief in June, is expected to be replaced by Insp. Gen. Suparto Parni.

The Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy has criticized Sutarman’s appointment as Jakarta Police chief, pointing to what it said was his failure to address a string of attacks targeting minority religious groups in West Java.

“[Sutarman’s] track record as West Java Police chief must be considered, as there have been many cases of religious intolerance there,” said Ismail Hasani, a researcher at Setara.

Friday’s attack on the Ahmadiyah community in Bogor came just months after a similar attack on the sect in the province.

In July, Muslims and security personnel clashed with Ahmadiyah members over the closure of several mosques in Kuningan.

More recently, on Sept. 12, two Protestant church leaders in Bekasi were attacked by youths who said the leaders were not welcome in the area.

Asia Sihombing, an elder of the Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP) in Pondok Timur Indah, was stabbed by unknown assailants, while the Rev. Luspida Simandjuntak, a fellow leader, was beaten with a stick.

Both were taken to Mitra Keluarga Hospital in East Bekasi, where Sihombing underwent surgery and had to be monitored in the intensive care unit.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe

URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/police-in-bogo...h-violence/399673

Govt blames Ahmadiyah for attacks

NATIONAL Tue, 10/05/2010 10:00 AM

Govt blames Ahmadiyah for attacks

Erwida Maulia and Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Bogor

Ahmadiyah followers continue to encounter challenges in Indonesia in practicing their religion freely, with the government sticking to its belief that violent acts against the group is their own fault.

After Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali said Ahmadiyah “must be disbanded immediately” for allegedly violating an agreement it had earlier promised to comply with; Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi similarly criticized Ahmadiyah’s failure to comply with the agreement, although he said nothing about disbanding the group.

Speaking to reporters before a Cabinet plenary meeting at the Presidential Office on Monday, Gamawan said, “Ahmadiyah has agreed on the 12 points, and yet it fails to comply with them, which makes non-Ahmadiyah Muslims question it.”

“Had they implemented all the 12 points, I think other Muslims will accept them. If they fail to fully comply, [the violence] will continue.”

Gamawan was referring to a 2008 agreement between Jamaat Ahmadiyah Indonesia (JAI) and the Supervision Committee on Cults and Sects (Bakorpakem), which consists of 12 points including that Ahmadis should regard Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of Ahmadiyah, as a guru instead of a prophet, and that Ahmadiyah should not deem non-Ahmadiyah Muslims as non-Muslims.

He stopped short, however, at mentioning what points the Ahmadis have violated, saying the government was seeking a “permanent solution” to the issue, and that it wanted to collect views from different parties to do so. “We can’t decide on the solution yet as we haven’t had a hearing with Ahmadiyah,” Gamawan said.

Violent acts against Ahmadis in Indonesia have been rising at an alarming rate over the past few years, with the latest incident involving the arson attack on houses and a place of worship of Ahmadis in Cisalada village in West Java regency of Bogor last Friday.

The attack is rumored to have been triggered after a non-Ahmadiyah member of a neighboring village had been stabbed by the Ahmadis.

Bogor Police criminal division chief Adj. Comr. Zulkarnaen Harahap said Monday the police had

questioned 16 witnesses and named four of them suspects; a Cisalada resident for stabbing Rendi, 16, from the neighboring Pasar Salasa village, and three unidentified persons for the arson attack.

Separately in Bandung, the Alliance for Religious tolerance (AKUR) claimed it had found evidence that the Cisalada attack had been planned, and that the police had learned about the plan before the attack occurred.

“Thus, it is not true that there had been a stabbing by the Ahmadis prior [to the attack],” AKUR chairman Asep Hadian Pernama told reporters in the West Java capital.

Arya Dipa contributed to the story from Bandung.

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/10/05/govt-blames-ahmadiyah-attacks.html

Ahmadiyah should not promote teachings: Kalla

ARCHIPELAGO Mon, 10/04/2010 9:35 AM

Ahmadiyah should not promote teachings: Kalla

The Jakarta Post

MAKASSAR: Ahmadiyah should not promote its views to the public because it strays from mainstream Islam, former vice president Jusuf Kalla says.

Kalla made the statement at a lecture to more than 6,600 Muhammadiyah University students in Makassar on Saturday.

However, people must avoid anarchism and violence in rejecting Ahmadiyah, he said.

“Ahmadiyah’s ideology does not conform with Islam. That’s why [Ahmadiyah] should not disseminate it to others. They may of course do so internally,” he said.

Some radical Muslims have violently attacked Ahmadiyah followers, most recently in Bogor, West Java. — JP

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/10/04/ahmadiyah...chings-kalla.html

Government to review Ahmadiyah joint decree

HEADLINES Mon, 10/04/2010 9:18 AM

Government to review Ahmadiyah joint decree

Arghea Desafti Hapsari and Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Bogor

In a bid to seek a “permanent solution” to the burning issue of Ahmadiyah, the government will review the controversial decree on the religious sect.

The director general of guidance to the Muslim community at the Religious Affairs Ministry, Nasaruddin Umar, said Sunday that there have been requests to “[assess] if the Ahmadis have actually complied with the [2008 joint ministerial] decree and whether the public in general have also done the same”. He added that the decree was bound not only to Ahmadis but also to people outside of the group.

Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali and Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi said last week they would meet to find a “permanent solution” to the Ahmadiyah problem. The talks are slated to start Monday.

The plan came on the heels of an arson attack on Ahmadis’ houses and places of worship in Ciampea village in the West Java regency of Bogor on Friday night.

Rafendi Djamin, Indonesia’s representative to ASEAN’s Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, said the talks would likely“lead to justifying a ban” on the religious sect.

“This is apparent from the fact that the government, through the Attorney General’s Office and the Religious Affairs Ministry, still supports the Indonesian Ulema Council’s interpretation of Islam.

Besides, the minister himself has time and again given his personal stance to disband the Ahmadiyah.”

Suryadharma has said Ahmadiyah “must be disbanded immediately” because it violated the decree, which states that Ahmadiyah cannot propagate its teachings. Jamaah Ahmadiyah, which has about 200,000 followers in Indonesia, has been the target of attacks from hard-line Islamic groups who demand that the sect be banned.

A mosque, five houses, a car and two motorcycles were burnt in the latest in a string of attacks on Ahmadis. On Sunday, the daughter of former president Abdurrahman Wahid, Inayah Wahid and the chairman of the National Commission on Children Protection, Seto Mulyadi visited the Ahmadi enclave.

Inayah said that whoever committed attacks on the minorities did not represent Muslims but only some people who wanted to destroy other beliefs. The attackers’ actions, she said, is based on “little knowledge of their religion” and “their own fears.” “I’m representing the Wahid family to show our support for the minority who are under attack,” she said. Lawmaker Gayus Lumbuun from the House of Representatives’ Commission III overseeing legal affairs expressed his concerns over “people who no longer have any regard for the law”.

“This is a tremendous threat to the nation’s unity,” he said, adding that both the religious affairs minister and home minister were responsible for the violence on Ahmadis. He promised to pool support from other House commissions to summon the ministers. “Warnings against them are useless. We will hold them responsible.”

He also said the talks should involve the National Commission on Human Rights, the National Commission on Violence against Women, interfaith groups and civil society groups that advocate on religious freedom. The deputy chairman of the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy, Bonar Tigor Naipospos, said: “The talks should definitely involve Ahmadiyah members. There is no way the government can make a decision without taking the subject at hand into account.”

He urged the government to raise the awareness of followers of mainstream religions to show more tolerance to the minorities. “It is high time that tolerance comes from the majority,” he added.

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/10/04/governm...yah-joint-decree.html

Editorial: Zero Tolerance for Indonesian Terrorists and Bigots

EDITORIAL

Editorial: Zero Tolerance for Indonesian Terrorists and Bigots

October 4, 2010

Turning up the heat against Islamic militants, the police raided a Sumatra hideout over the weekend, where they shot six suspects dead and arrested four others. The gunbattle, on the heels of a raid on another terrorist hideout last month, sent a strong signal to terrorists and extremists.

Indonesia is no longer a safe haven for them and they will be hunted down and dealt with in accordance with the law. Kudos to the police for continuing this fight and ensuring that militants and terrorists can no longer operate freely within our borders. The suspects are believed to be linked to a group accused of killing a police officer during a heist in Medan last August, which was meant to raise funds for terrorist attacks.

Also, the suspects were allegedly involved in an attack on a police station near Medan, where three police officers were killed. Indonesia has suffered a number of devastating terrorist attacks in recent years, claiming innocent lives and hampering economic stability.

Terrorists are waging a war in the name of Islam, but it is clear to Muslims that they have disparaged and insulted the religion through their actions.

These threats must be wiped out, but it will take time. We cannot rest. Security forces must remain alert at all times. While the police continue the fight against extremists, there are still worrying signs that they are not giving ample attention to protecting minority groups in the country.

Last Friday’s attack on members of the Ahmadiyah sect must be condemned and the perpetrators must be brought to justice. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has appealed for calm and instructed the police to arrest those responsible for the attack, which involved burning and looting the homes of Ahmadiyah members.

Apparently, the attack was triggered by rumors that some members of the sect had stabbed villagers in the area.

Around 600,000 members of Ahmadiyah throughout the country have faced constant harassment and discrimination for years. Some have been denied access to state jobs while their children are often taunted at school. Similar burnings and attacks on Ahmadiyah mosques and homes have occurred in several places like West Nusa Tenggara, where homes belonging to members of the sect were burned, leaving hundreds homeless.

The last attack occurred in Bogor, West Java, on the same day that the president warned the public against spreading hate and violence. Assailants torched an Ahmadiyah mosque, two houses and seven vehicles, as well as vandalized several other buildings. Freedom of worship is guaranteed by the Constitution. Burning and looting are crimes.

The police cannot turn a blind eye to discrimination if we, as a nation and society, want to call ourselves truly democratic. The test of our social character is our willingness and ability to provide security and protection to minority groups.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe

URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/editorials/editorial-zero-...sts-and-bigots/399473

Study Finds Rising Intolerance Among Indonesian Muslims

INDONESIA

Study Finds Rising Intolerance Among Indonesian Muslims

September 30, 2010

Indonesian worshipers at the Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta. A new survey by the Center for the Study of Islam and Society has found “a worrying increase” in religious intolerance among Muslims in 2010 compared to 2001. (Antara Photo)

Jakarta. Indonesia’s Muslim majority has become less tolerant over the past decade and the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is turning a blind eye to the problem, a survey has found.

The new survey by the Center for the Study of Islam and Society found “a worrying increase” in religious intolerance among Muslims in 2010 compared to 2001.

Centre chief Jajat Burhanudin said on Wednesday that certain ministers in Yudhoyono’s cabinet actively encouraged intolerance, while the police too often failed to protect minority groups.

“If this continues, the process of democracy in this country will be disrupted as people will justify their acts in the name of Islam,” he said.

Of 1,200 adult Muslim men and women surveyed nationwide, 57.8 percent said they were against the construction of churches and other non-Muslim places of worship, the highest rate the study centre has recorded since 2001.

More than a quarter, or 27.6 percent, said they minded if non-Muslims taught their children, up from 21.4 percent in 2008.

Burhanudin said the results were good news for radical groups in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.

“Religious intolerance can encourage people them to become radicals, join terrorist networks or at least support the agenda of fundamentalists who commit violence in the name of religion,” he said.

Indonesia’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion and the country of some 240 million people, 80 percent of whom are Muslim, has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

But it has a festering problem with homegrown, Al Qaeda-inspired terror groups, as well as stick-wielding vigilantes that constantly agitate, often violently, for Shariah or Islamic law.

In the latest serious incident, extremists allegedly stabbed a church elder and bashed a female priest outside Jakarta earlier this month.

Thousands of members of the minority Islamic Ahmadiya sect have lived in constant fear of attack since a 2008 ministerial decree limited their religious freedoms.

Burhanudin said ex-general Yudhoyono, who invited Islamic parties into his governing coalition, “doesn’t dare” to crack down on Muslim extremists.

“There is no systematic or serious effort to reduce the strength of Islamism and intolerance,” he said.

Agence France-Presse

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe

URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/study-finds-ri...g-indonesian-muslims/398875

Rising Bigotry Makes Extremism Easier: Survey

INDONESIA

Rising Bigotry Makes Extremism Easier: Survey

Ulma Haryanto | September 23, 2010

Jakarta. The recent forcible shuttering of churches and Ahmadiyah mosques, as well as the recent attack on two protestant church leaders, do not come as a surprise to two key organizations that track intolerance in the country.

Both the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) and Lazuardi Birru, an independent organization focused on combating extremism, have said religious prejudice was on the rise here, leading to a higher potential for people to become radial in their views

Clear signals of religious intolerance among Indonesians came out of a national survey the groups carried out earlier this year, according to Lazuardi Birru chairwoman Dhyah Madya Ruth.

Dhyah said on Wednesday that the nationwide survey was conducted across all 33 provinces from March 26 to April 6, and involved 1,320 randomly selected respondents, the majority of whom were Muslims.

She said the survey results were compiled into a “radicalization vulnerability index” to show how vulnerable Indonesian Muslims were to being radicalized, and the highest factor contributing to the vulnerability was intolerance.

“Our survey revealed that dislikes against certain religious groups also influenced their actions and views,” Dhyah told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday.

As many as 63.8 percent of the survey’s respondents would object if other religious groups built houses of worship in their neighborhoods, while 51.6 percent objected if groups from other religions held a religious event in their area.

Meanwhile, 47.8 percent would have no objection if somebody outside Islam became a state official, and 32.4 percent would object.

The numbers differed slightly for those simply active in political parties – 51.3 percent said they had no objection while 25.6 percent objected .

“From this result, if the expectations [of state leaders] are that Indonesian Muslims are already tolerant enough to the groups that they dislike, including Christians, then they are clearly out of touch,” Dhyah said.

The survey showed that 1.3 percent of the respondents had once attacked houses of worship of other faiths, and that 5.3 percent would do the same if they had the chance.

“Intolerance against groups that the respondents disliked increased their involvement in radical actions or support for radical actions,” Dhyah explained.

The survey was launched as part of an effort by the organization to understand how vulnerable Indonesian Muslims were towards radicalization efforts.

“We are concerned about the level of radicalism in this country,” Dhyah said. Lazuardi Birru had been using the data as its reference in creating programs to deter radicalization in youths.

Separately, Bonar Tigor Naipospos, deputy chairman of the Setara Institute, said that mobile puritan and relatively intolerant groups were spreading their influence at the grass-roots level.

“It could be the FPI [Islamic Defenders Front], and could take other names,” he said.

Bonar said it was impossible that the government was unaware of the survey’s conclusions, because in every religion there were always hard-line views.

“It’s just a matter of how the state could protect the citizens from such views…. The reluctance of government to take a stand had a lot to do with religion being a sensitive issue,” he said.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe

URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/risin...s-extremism-easier-survey/397625

Ahmadiyah Members See Their Civil Rights Trodden Upon

Jakarta

Ahmadiyah Members See Their Civil Rights Trodden Upon

Nivell Rayda | August 22, 2010

Ahmadiyah members leaving their mosque after Friday prayers in Manis Lor village in Kuningan, West Java. The mosque has been at the center of protests by hard-line Muslims groups from the area. (AFP Photo/Yonda)

Jakarta. Weddings in Indonesia often are elaborate feasts with at least 500 guests and the best food and drinks money can buy. But this wasn’t the case for 21-year-old Nur (not her real name).

Nur is a member of the controversial sect of Ahmadiyah, considered by many to be outside of mainstream Islam. Her wedding took place in secrecy and was attended by only six people — three members of her family, and three from her husband’s.

Although there is no formal instruction from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, there seems to be an unspoken rule prohibiting Indonesia’s Religious Affairs Office (KUA) from marrying a couple from the Ahmadiyah sect.

When she was applying for a marriage license, Nur was sent all over West Java, from one KUA office to another. “Like all brides and grooms from my village, I had to go to different districts [before I could] get my marriage license. We were asked to change our residency to the district [where we could get married], but we needed to have a sponsor living there before we could change our ID card,” Nur told the Jakarta Globe.

“I begged and I begged. Thankfully, because of the goodness of one KUA official, we were eventually able to get married. But everything had to be done in secrecy.”

After six months, the KUA official called Nur’s family to say it was safe to choose a venue and perform the wedding ceremony. A small mosque far away from the issuing KUA office was chosen to avoid detection.

But Nur was told not to hold a wedding reception. “But if we insisted, it had to be held months after the actual marriage, again to avoid detection,” she said.

“The official that oversaw our wedding could get into trouble if we did [get detected] and that would mean every Ahmadiyah couple after us could forget about getting married.”

Marriage is only one of the things made more difficult for members of Ahmadiyah, decreed a deviant sect in 2008 after mounting pressure on the government from mainstream Muslim organizations. 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.

Not Always an Issue

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.

But the sect wasn’t always a religious pariah.Ahmadiyah once lived in harmony with other Muslim groups. It traces its roots in Indonesia to 1925, when two Muslim scholars in Sumatra began spreading their beliefs upon their return from their studies in India.

Separately in Yogyakarta in 1929, several former members of the mainstream Muhammadiyah organization established their own Ahmadiyah group. This group, however, adopted a less controversial view already popular in Lahore, Pakistan, which maintains that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was not a prophet but a reformer of Islam.

In 1953, the Indonesian government acknowledged Ahmadiyah as an Islamic organization, and it ranks of followers grew.

For the most part, the government managed to suppress calls for the Ahmadiyah to disband, though in 1980 several mainstream Muslim groups decided to consider the sect both deviant and blasphemous.

It was not until the end of former President Suharto’s regime, in 1998, that mainstream Muslim groups began to actively call for a prohibition of the sect.

After former President Abdurrahman Wahid — seen by many as a champion of religious tolerance — stepped down in 2001, the call intensified and the sect became the target of violent actions.

In 2005, the nation’s leading Islamic authority, the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against Ahmadiyah, calling its teachings blasphemous and deviant.

The increasing tension eventually led to the joint issuance of the 2008 decree by the Religious Affairs Ministry, the Home Affairs Ministry and the Attorney General’s Office.

Endless Intimidation

Zafrullah Pontoh, the president of the Indonesian Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI), said that while the decree was a form of oppression directed against the estimated 600,000 members of the sect, it still left room for multiple interpretations.

“Members of Ahmadiyah face constant harassment both from the government and members of the public,” he said.

“The longer the government stays quiet about this, the harsher the intimidation against Ahmadiyah members.”

In February 2006, thousands of mainstream Muslims in West Nusa Tenggara province burned homes belonging to Ahmadiyah members in West Lombok district. The incidents left as many as 137 people homeless, all of whom had to be escorted by police officers to a temporary shelter in the provincial capital, Mataram.

Four years after the incident, more than 40 Ahmadiyah families still live in the shelter without electricity or any certainty about whether they will be able to return home. Most are traumatized and fear a repeat of the incident.

“Some families insisted on returning home to their village, although they know that police and the government have refused to vouch for their safety if they do,” Saeful Uyun, secretary of the provincial chapter of the JAI, told the Globe. “The conditions in the shelter are unbearable to some, so many have reluctantly ventured to other cities and provinces.”

Saeful added that one of the countless forms of discrimination that members of Ahmadiyah in Mataram had to endure was the fact that the local government had been refusing to grant members of the sect ID cards that are obligatory for all Indonesian citizens.

Without an ID card it is almost impossible for the Ahmadiyah members — having already lost virtually all their belongings in the attack — to apply for jobs, obtain a driver’s license or a passport for the Hajj pilgrimage.

“The city of Mataram refuses to give the refugees ID cards because officially they are listed as residents of West Lombok district, while the district argues that they should apply for Mataram residency because they have been living in Mataram for years,” he said. “They are left in limbo over their status and fate.”

For Ahmadiyah members in Manis Lor village, in Kuningan, West Java, the threat of violence returns almost every year. It comes from the local government and hard-line Muslim groups, both seeking the closure of an Ahmadiyah mosque and seven prayer facilities, or musholla, in the village.

“It seems like there is an agenda every year just before Ramadan to scare us off,” said Nurahim, the secretary of the An Nur Mosque in Manis Lor. “This is our home. The Ahmadiyah have existed in Manis Lor since 1953. We will fight for our rights until the end.”

Violent scenes erupted between July 26 and 29 in Kuningan when hundreds of police and public order officers tried to seal off the mosque and musholla.

The closures were met with resistance from members of the sect, with protesters blocking attempts to shut down the facilities. But a number of hard-line Muslim groups soon flocked to the village carrying wooden planks, knives and slingshots, and scuffles quickly broke out.

Nurahim said that the July confrontation was fairly minor compared to a 2006 incident in the village, when dozens of Ahmadiyah members were left heavily injured after being pelted with rocks and beaten.

Muslim Sect or Other Religion?

Witnesses have singled out the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) as the force behind the string of attacks in Kuningan.

The FPI was also believed to be behind another attack on an Ahmadiyah mosque in Surabaya, East Java, on Aug. 9.

Around 200 people rallied in front of the mosque at that time, demanding the government shut it down. They ended up vandalizing the mosque by dismantling the signage at its gate.

Muhammad Shobri Lubis, an FPI leader, did not deny that members of his organization had participated in the attacks. “Even if they did attack an Ahmadiyah member it was because the FPI was provoked,” he said.

“The Ahmadiyah are a menace. Their members are hard-headed. They refuse to follow the MUI fatwa. They have also ignored calls from the government to cease their activities. We are merely urging them to respect the government, to respect Islam, the Koran and the Hadith [the narrated teachings of the Prophet Muhammad].”

Malik Madani, one of the leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Islamic organization in the country, said that although the NU believed in peaceful dialogue to resolve differences with the sect, the organization’s standpoint was that Ahmadiyah should not be seen as an Islamic sect, but as a religion distinct from Islam, as is the case in places like Pakistan.

“People are anxious because most within the Muslim community feel that Ahmadiyah has disgraced Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad is the final prophet and there is no negotiating that,” Malik said.

“The longer Ahmadiyah is allowed to practice its faith, the more the Islamic ideals and fundamentals will suffer.”

‘Muslims Just Like Us’

But Nuniek Susilowati disagrees. Although not an Ahmadiyah member herself, she lives in close proximity to the Ahmadiyah community in the Kebayoran Lama area of South Jakarta. She said that as a mainstream Muslim, she never felt that Ahmadiyah’s religious activities were disgracing her faith.

“They’re quite friendly and open about their beliefs. In fact, they are quite generous. They participate in a lot of community activities and social occasions. You can ask anyone here, they’re not troublemakers,” she said.

Ahmadiyah members in Kebayoran are a clear minority. The Ahmadiyah mosque there is completely surrounded by residents adhering to mainstream Islam. Just a few meters from the mosque is a secretariat of the Betawi Community Forum (FBR), which is considered by many to be an organization of very conservative and devout Muslims.

Nuniek also dismissed claims from hard-line Muslim groups that Ahmadiyah members performed different prayer rituals.

“Growing up, I was told that Ahmadiyah had a different version of the Koran, that their prayers were different, that their adhan [call to prayer] was different and that they didn’t believe Muhammad was a prophet. None of it is true,” she said.

“When I first moved here, I prayed at their mosque by mistake. My husband scolded me and told me that I had just prayed at a mosque of infidels. But after a while, I noticed that there were no differences. They’re Muslims just like us. Since then, I’ve often prayed at their mosque even though I’m not a member.”

Bonar Tigor Naipospos, deputy chairman of the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy, said that Ahmadiyah members in major cities faced less intimidation than those in remote villages across the country.

“Mainstream Muslim groups in the rural areas have a more conservative and narrower view of Ahmadiyah. They hold greater prejudices toward Ahmadiyah because of their lack of understanding of the sect,” Bonar said.

Witnesses alleged that those attacking the Ahmadiyah mosque in Kuningan were not locals, but came from Cirebon in West Java, and places as far as Ponorogo in East Java. Those who burned down houses of the Ahmadiyah community in West Lombok are said to have come from the adjacent district of Central Lombok.

“Those who live in close proximity to Ahmadiyah members and those who often interact with them know that they’re just like other Muslims,” Bonar said.

Government (In)action

Nasarudin Umar, the Religious Affairs Ministry’s director general of Islamic affairs, claims that although the government no longer recognizes Ahmadiyah as part of Islam, Indonesia protects the human rights of the sect’s members and their privileges as Indonesian citizens.

“The government certainly never bars Ahmadiyah members from marrying at the KUA nor does it deny their rights as citizens, such as the right to obtain an ID card, to receive education and health care and to hold public office. The Religious Affairs Ministry even helps them if they want to perform the Hajj pilgrimage,” Nasarudin told the Globe.

“As far as intimidation goes, the government always tries to protect Ahmadiyah members’ civil rights. The government always prevents violence from escalating and facilitates peaceful talks between members of the sect and the wider Muslim population.”

These statements, though, do not seem to reflect the situation on the ground, as Ahmadiyah members in Lombok and Kuningan said that police were at the scene when the violence broke out but did very little to bring the situation under control.

Andreas Harsono, a representative of Human Rights Watch in Indonesia, said that there had never been any police investigation into the alleged human rights abuses against Ahmadiyah members or any record of the perpetrators being arrested.

“Ahmadiyah members in Lombok lost their homes and some were beaten until they were seriously injured. I know of one man in Lombok who was left permanently crippled from the injuries he sustained,” Andreas said.

“There are witnesses to the attack, the evidence is there, but the police have never arrested anyone. The same goes for the attacks against Ahmadiyah members in Garut, Bogor and Kuningan.”

Setara’s Bonar said the government itself was discriminating against Ahmadiyah members. He said his institute had discovered instances where Ahmadiyah members were dismissed from public office or discriminated against at public schools.

Siti Hafizah, a member of Ahmadiyah in Kuningan, said that because of her beliefs she was discriminated against during her high school years, particularly during classes on Islamic studies.

One of her teachers, Siti said, discovered that she was from Manis Lor, where 90 percent of the 4,500 residents are members of Ahmadiyah.

“I wasn’t allowed to participate in classes unless I denounced my beliefs and embraced mainstream Islam,” she said.

“All I could do was cry at the library each time we had a class on Islamic studies. Thank God my parents intervened so that I could at least take the tests. But still, although I knew I did well during the tests, the teacher kept giving me bad grades.”

Other Ahmadiyah students said that they were not allowed to take their final examination (part of the National Final Examination, or UAN) in the subject.

Legitimized Hostility?

Bonar said attackers have always been able to use the 1965 Blasphemy Law to legitimize hostilities against Ahmadiyah.

“Clearly the law, which is out of date and no longer relevant in today’s world, is being utilized as a weapon. The law creates an opportunity for the attackers to intimidate Ahmadiyah members and take the law into their own hands,” Bonar said.

The law forbids blasphemy and desecration of religions. Violators face lengthy jail terms.

Several groups have challenged the law and filed for a judicial review with the Constitutional Court, arguing the law is contradictory to the Constitution, as the latter guarantees freedom of worship. However, the court in April rejected the motion to annul the law.

Human Rights Watch said the government should annul both the Blasphemy Law and the 2008 joint decree against Ahmadiyah.

“Indonesia is a secular state and the government should not make laws and regulations that inhibit religious freedom. The Indonesian Constitution makes it clear that it is the government’s job to ensure that all citizens can exercise their religion freely,” Andreas said.

Bonar added that the only way to end the ongoing discriminatory acts against Ahmadiyah was for the government to enforce the rule of law. “The government must ensure impartial legal treatment and human rights protection for all citizens,” he said.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe

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