Debate Over Indonesian Religion Bill Heats Up

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Debate Over Indonesian Religion Bill Heats Up

Ulma Haryanto & Anita Rachman | October 24, 2011

Rahmat Rahmadijaya, an Ahmadiyah leader living in Jatibening, Bekasi, has been anxious for a few weeks now.

At first he didn’t want to talk, but he later changed his mind. “If I speak out, maybe I can get people to support us, to pray for us,” he told the Jakarta Globe in a recent interview.

He is anxious because of a decree signed by Bekasi’s acting mayor, Rahmat Effendi, that bans the Muslim minority group from conducting activities that may be interpreted as an effort to spread its beliefs.

The ban went into effect on Oct. 13. Since then, Rahmat and other members of the Ahmadiyah community in his neighborhood have started holding Friday prayers under tight security from Bekasi Police.

“Our second Friday prayers went relatively normally, about 60 people joined in,” said another resident, Abdul Rohim.

“We don’t know about next week, though.”

In Need of a Law?

The fear appears to be justified. Several violent incidents have targeted Ahmadiyah communities throughout the country.

One of the worst — an attack in February by a mob of at least a thousand on an Ahmadi group in Cikeusik that left three members of the sect dead — spurred a discussion over a long-delayed bill on religious harmony.

At the time, the bill was presented by lawmakers as a long-term solution to the religious conflicts plaguing the country and to give a stronger legal basis to joint ministerial decrees that regulate religious matters in the country today.

Last week, Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Agung Laksono, Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali and Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi reiterated their endorsement of the bill.

“We need a regulation that contains both conflict prevention and solutions to the problems obstructing religious harmony,” Agung said.

The current draft of the bill regulates various religious rights and obligations such as proselytizing, celebrating religious holidays, constructing places of worship, funerals and religious education.

“The original version of the draft, written by the staff of the Religious Affairs Ministry, dated back to 2003,” said Ismail Hasani, a researcher at Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy. “The current draft is more or less the same.”

The bill is part of the 2011 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas), or the list of priority bills for the year, but it has been delayed as the House of Representatives has turned its attention to other bills.

Will It Help?

Setara deputy chairman Bonar Tigor Naipospos, an advocate of pluralism, isn’t looking forward to the religious harmony bill being passed into law.

He said it would only legitimize existing discriminatory regulations within the 1965 Anti-Blasphemy Law and a 2006 joint ministerial decree on places of worship, which has contributed to a number of conflicts.

In Bogor, for instance, Mayor Diani Budiarto has used the ministerial decree to continue to defy a Supreme Court ruling ordering the reopening of the GKI Yasmin Church.

The 2006 joint ministerial decree requires 60 signatures from local residents in support of the construction of a place of worship, but the mayor has claimed that GKI Yasmin forged the signatures.

The tension in Bogor came to a head two weeks ago, when churchgoers and public order officers (Satpol PP) clashed in front of the sealed building.

West Java Police are now investigating complaints filed by both camps against each other. A Satpol PP chief is accusing GKI Yasmin churchgoers of hitting him in the jaw and knocking him unconscious, while the church is countersuing Satpol PP for disrupting its service.

Bonar said the bill would be unhelpful to the cause of the Ahmadiyah as well. “The spirit of the law that condemns their belief, the 1965 Anti-Blasphemy Law, is still incorporated in the bill,” he said.

Fears and Worries

Abdul Kadir Karding, chairman of House Commission VIII, which oversees social affairs, urged the public to think positively about what the lawmakers in the commission were doing.

He said the House wanted to give protection to minorities.

“For instance, when there is a non-Muslim person living in a Muslim community, he or she has the right to use the same public cemetery like the majority,” he said. “In the Cikeusik case, we want this future law to ensure that the guilty will get punished.”

Activists were outraged that most of the 12 people convicted in the Cikeusik attack were sentenced to just six months in jail — the same sentence given to one of the Ahmadi victims convicted of violent assault and disobeying police officers who had ordered him and about a dozen other Ahmadis to evacuate ahead of the attack.

Karding acknowledges that unless the bill is carefully constructed, it risks becoming a tool for “hard-line groups to limit freedom of religion.”

Fajar Riza Ul Haq, executive director of the Maarif Institute, asked the House to be more open in the drafting and deliberation.

He said it should learn from the recently passed Intelligence Law, when both the House and government ignored public criticism.

One critical point, he said, was how the House would define “harmony” in the bill. “They should have drafted a religious freedom bill instead of this one.”

Harmony vs Freedom

Harmony, for instance, could be used to justify the recently issued Bekasi ban on the Ahmadiyah’s activities, which states the ban is needed to “preserve and maintain the stability of conduciveness and security, peace and order in Bekasi.”

Bonar views the religious harmony bill as the “middle way” after the Constitutional Court rejected a judicial review of the 1965 Anti-Blasphemy Law.

“Because even though the court rejected the request because the law itself is not unconstitutional, it stated in its ruling that a revision or an update of the law was needed,” Bonar said.

“Principally, we can’t agree with the law since it reflects the fact that this government thinks religious harmony is something that should be engineered, rather than grow naturally.”

If the government really wanted “harmony,” Fajar said it should start addressing the prevalence of hate speech.

In Jatibening, just before the ban on the Ahmadiyah was issued, members of the notorious hard-line group Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) were in the area.

“They came to Jatibening and intimidated people, telling us to shut down our mosque about three weeks ago,” Rahmat said.

Additional reporting by Vento Saudale

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/debate-over...up/473591

We’re not safe living anywhere: Ahmadis

CITYSat, 10/22/2011 12:37 PM

We’re not safe living anywhere: Ahmadis

The Jakarta Post, Bekasi

The imam of the Al-Misbah Ahmadiyah mosque in Jatibening, Bekasi, recently called on members not to congregate for Friday prayers for safety reasons following an official ban on Ahmadiyah religious practices in Bekasi.

Rahmat Rahmadijaya, the imam, said, “It’s up to them if they want to pray here anyway. I won’t send them home,” he said, adding that about 50 of the 200 registered followers were regulars at the mosque.

However, dozens of Ahmadiyah members still went to the mosque on Friday — a week after the Bekasi municipality officially banned the sect — and conducted Friday prayers under police guard.

“[Intimidation] makes us stronger. Members are even more determined to go to the mosque,” Vera, a member, told The Jakarta Post.

Congregation members later left the mosque peacefully after the weekly service concluded.

The Bekasi municipality ruled last week that the decree banning Ahmadiyah religious practices had been passed in order to meet the demands of local people.

The Ahmadiyah are not considered a Muslim group by mainstream Muslims, as the sect’s teachings are considered to deviate from mainstream Islam.

However, residents of Jatibening told the Post that there had never been any conflict between Ahmadiyah members, who mostly live outside the housing complex, and them.

Hartinah, who has lived in the neighborhood since before the mosque was built in the 1980s, said there had been no problems between Ahmadiyah followers and residents.

“As a child, I, along with neighbors, often joined Koran recitations or breaking of the fast events at the mosque. They are friendly and have never forced us to follow their beliefs, so we have no problems with their presence,” she said.

Hartinah said that people had started to leave the mosque following the spike in reports of violence against Ahmadiyah members throughout the country.

“I’m not sure who is right, but the presence of vigilante group members around here scares me more,” Hartinah said.

Imam Rahmat said that after the Bekasi decree issuance, he had been intensively communicating with the police. “When there are rumors that certain groups will come, the police deploy officers to guard the mosque,” he said.

Ahmadiyah members have not been holding regular events other than weekly Friday prayers and sermons.

Firdaus Mubarik, public relations officer of the Ahmadiyah Indonesia Congregation, told the Post that the organization had stopped holding national events after thousands attacked the Ahmadiyah Indonesia Congregation in Parung, Bogor, in 2005.

“We are no longer safe anywhere in Indonesia,” Firdaus said.

Concerning the appointment of Nasaruddin Umar as the religious affairs deputy minister tasked with “eliminating possible religious conflicts” during the recent Cabinet reshuffle, Mubarik said he was pessimistic that it would have any impact on the Ahmadis.

“As far as I know, Nasaruddin was involved in the drafting of the 2008 joint ministerial decree banning Ahmadiyah religious practices. Besides, [the problem solving] is not in the hands of ministers, but of the President [Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono],” he said.

Firdaus pointed out that the incidence of violence against Ahmadis had increased and worsen during Yudhoyono’s leadership.

“Before Yudhoyono came to power, the eviction of 300 Ahmadis living in Lombok [West Nusa Tenggara] in 2002 was the biggest tragedy for us. During Yudhoyono’s leadership, we’ve seen worse and even lost several members, who were killed during the incidents,” Firdaus said. (swd)

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/10/22/we-re...ahmadis.html

Ahmadiyah officially banned [by Bekasi municipality]

HEADLINESFri, 10/14/2011 6:54 AM

Ahmadiyah officially banned [by Bekasi municipality]

Hans David Tampubolon, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Bekasi municipality has officially banned the religious practice of the Ahmadiyah sect on Thursday, a move pluralists deemed as the legitimation of a violation of the spirit of the Constitution.

The head of the Bekasi Agency for State Unity, Politics and Community Protection, Agus Dharma, said that the issuance of the decree banning Ahmadiyah’s religious practices was passed in order to meet the demands of local people.

“Ahmadiyah activity has caused unrest among Bekasi residents. [The decree was] issued to prevent conflicts resulting from different beliefs among local residents,” Agus said.

The decree was signed by acting Bekasi mayor Rahmat Effendi, and involved all city institutions contained under the Regional Consultative Council (Muspida).

The decree accentuated a 2008 joint ministerial decree, and an Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) edict from 2005, demanding Ahmadiyah be disbanded because it was heretic and blasphemous.

There are around 200 Ahmadiyah followers in Bekasi, according to the city administration.

Commenting on this latest development in Bekasi, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Usman Hamid said it was time for all civilians to rise up and conduct forms of civil disobedience in protest against a government that has legitimazed a discriminative regulation that basically violated the spirit of the Constitution, which guarantees people’s religious freedoms and rights.

“Civil disobedience is not intended as a violation of the law but as a [peaceful] protest. The law, right now, no longer represents the rights of minorities,” Usman told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Usman also said that the Bekasi administration’s move was a sign that the values of democracy in the country have faded away.

“The main pillars of democracy are equal citizenship and human rights. Without them, there can be no democracy. Democracy does not stop with the ballot box.”

Separately, Ahmadiyah spokesman Mubarik said that the nation’s legal system had done little to support minorities.

“The most horrific example is the fact that the murderers of three Ahmadiyah followers have not been brought to trial until now,” Mubarik said, in referring to an incident that occurred earlier this year when three Ahmadiyah followers were brutally murdered by a mob of fundamentalists in Cikeusik, Banten.

Mubarik, however, stressed that for the time being, Ahmadiyah followers would comply with the Bekasi decree, banning their activities.

“Our compliance does not mean that we are not going to fight back.

We will fight for our rights through our legal representatives, who have submitted a judicial review to the Supreme Court on every discriminative decree and regulation issued in the country,” he said.

“It will be a long fight. But people need to realize that Ahmadiyah followers are basically free citizens. Their right to freedom [of religion] must not be curtailed. Any decree or regulation that curtails citizens’ rights is a violation of the Constitution and, therefore, for the sake of the law, such decrees and regulations must be annulled,” he added.

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

Indonesian Religion Minister Wants Ahmadiyah Sect Disbanded

ASIA

Indonesian Religion Minister Wants Ahmadiyah Sect Disbanded

Brian Padden | Jakarta31 August 2010

Photo: AP

Members of Indonesian hard-line Islamic groups shout slogans during a rally in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, demanding the government disband Ahmadiyah, 5 Mar 2009 (file photo)

The Indonesian minister of Religious Affairs wants the Jamaah Ahmadiyah religious group to be disbanded in the country. Human rights groups and some religious organizations said such action would be a violation of both human rights and the constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion.

Suryadharma Ali, the Religious Affairs minister, has said that the Jamaah Ahmadiyah sect should to be broken up because its followers violated regulations and are not Muslim.

The Ahmadiyah sect, which has 200,000 followers across the country, breaks with mainstream Islam because its followers do not believe the Prophet Muhammad was the final prophet. In 2008, the Indonesian government banned the group from propagating the faith. The Religious Affairs minister says Ahmadiyah has defied this restriction and should now be banned.

Syafi’i Anwar with the International Center for Islam and Pluralism said the minister’s call to restrict the religion contradicts the values and laws he should be upholding. “This is definitely against human rights, against religious freedom, against our constitution and against our Islamic principles.”

He said Ahmadiyah has been a sanctioned religion by the government since 1954 and its members should enjoy the same protection under the law as other religions.

Some Muslims, however, contend Ahmadiyah is not a separate religion, but a deviate sect of Islam, and therefore does not enjoy the same constitutional protection.

In the past few months there have been attacks on Ahmadiyah mosques by fundamentalist Islamic groups. At a hearing in the House of Representatives on Monday, the Religious Affairs minister said Ahmadiyah should be disbanded to prevent further problems.

Anwar said the attacks happened because the government, particularly President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, refuses to speak out against the violence and for religious freedom.

“President SBY makes a serious mistake,” said Anwar. “Why? Because he doesn’t take any firm position. If he just say that, you know, order the police (to arrest) those who attack Ahmadiyah or any other non-Muslim groups, I think the police will follow.”

The president thus far has refused to comment, so the minister of Religious Affairs’ statement is the clearest indication of where the government stands on this issue.

While Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, the government is secular and the constitution guarantees freedom of religion. The country has seen sporadic violence, though, between different religious groups over the past decade.

URL: www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Indonesi...banded--101918633.html

Followers of Ahmadiyah Face Pressure in Indonesia

ASIA

Followers of Ahmadiyah Face Pressure in Indonesia

Angela Dewan | Jakarta11 August 2010

Photo: AP

Ahmadiyah followers coming out from a mosque after Friday prayers in Kuningan, West Java, Indonesia, 30 Jul 2010

A mosque belonging to the Islamic sect Ahmadiyah in Indonesia has been allowed to stay open following weeks of threats of closure by some Islamic groups and authorities. Followers of Ahmadiyah, considered a deviant sect in Indonesia, continue to face pressure from some mainstream Muslim groups.

It is midday in Jakarta and mosques all over the city are calling millions of Muslims to prayer.

The Al Hidayah mosque in northern Jakarta looks much like any other in Indonesia. Its dome and minaret are unmistakably Islamic and people who come to pray wash their hands and feet, kneel on prayer mats and bow their heads to the ground, as Muslims do all over the world.

Background

What makes this mosque different, however, is that it is a house of worship for the Ahmadiyah sect. In 2008, the Indonesian government banned the group from propagating their faith, because its followers believe that founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of India was Islam’s last prophet. [**] This differs from mainstream Islam, which considers Muhammad the last prophet.

The head of the Al Hidayah mosque, Zafrullah Pontoh, says he and his congregation have practiced their religion as usual since the ministerial decree.

He says that Ahmadis are Muslims. Their principles are in harmony with Islam. Their calls to prayer are the same. Their rituals are the same. There is no big difference.

Followers under attack

But in many areas in Indonesia, Ahmadis find themselves under attack. In Manis Lor in West Java, about 160 kilometers from Jakarta, two-thirds of the district’s 4,500 residents are Ahmadiyah Muslims.

Police officers guarded Manis Lor this week after attacks and threats on an Ahmadiyah mosque there ahead of Islam’s holiest observances, the fasting month of Ramadan.

Attempt to close the mosque

Late last month, violence broke out there when police and hundreds of supporters from strict Islamist groups attempted to close down the mosque before Ramadan began on Wednesday.

The district head had ordered the mosque closed after a recommendation in June from the National Ulema Council that all eight Ahmadiyah mosques in Manis Lor be shut.

But district officials backed off on the effort to close the mosque this week.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos is from the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, an Indonesian research group that tracks human rights. He says the mosque was not closed because local authorities lacked support from the central government. Although the district has some autonomy, the national government can overrule local decrees.

He says Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono invited the district head to Jakarta to discuss the situation, and it has calmed down since then.

He says that religious affairs are dealt with by the central government, and that closing the mosque would not have been legal. He says the 2008 ministerial decree was against Ahmadis propagating their religion, not against them practicing it.

The situation in Manis Lor echoes a string of attacks on Christian churches in recent months, carried out mostly by a group known as the Islamic Defenders Front. Their attacks are in part a response to allegations that Christians have been proselytizing in Muslim neighborhoods.

Government standing on the issue

The attacks have raised concerns that Islamic hard-liners are gaining a firmer grip on the government and that freedom of religion is under threat.

Andreas Harsono is from Human Rights Watch. He says the government should revoke the 2008 decree and that attempts to close the Manis Lor mosque are illegal.

“Restricting Ahmadiyah … is against international human rights law,” Harsono said. “In this case, the Indonesian government does not obey the international treaty it has signed.”

While Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population – more than 200 million people – the government is secular. The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but only for six major faiths.

The Religious Affairs Ministry last month defended the decree against Ahmadiyah, describing its teachings as “heretic”.

The ministry’s director for Islamic guidance, Nasarudin Umar, says Indonesians still have religious freedom.

He says that everyone in Indonesia has the right to follow different religions, as long as they do not agitate people of other religions. If one religion violates the religion of the majority and uses the same name, he says, then that is a problem. If Ahmadiyah says it is Islamic, it must follow Islamic principles.

The pressure on the Ahmadis is expected to ease during Ramadan, but there are concerns it could resume after the month of fasting and prayer ends.

The statement is erroneous. Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian did not make any such claim of being last prophet. Please visit Alislam.org/messiah for further info.

URL: www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Followe...sia-100451979.html

A sad place, indeed

Columnist

A sad place, indeed

    By Kamran Shafi

    Tuesday, 08 Jun, 2010

My piece of last week was more a personal journey in time: remembering old friends and recalling a time when there was no distinction between Sunnis and Shias and Ahmadis and Bohris and Aga Khanis and what have you, each worshipping his God in his own way, but all equal citizens of the state. — Reuters Photo

I have to start with the drama fast unfolding in the honourable Supreme Court, and the reaction to it that one meets on the street and on the Internet.

I wonder how conversant My Lords are with cyberspace, especially when one sees the utter abandon with which the Lahore High Court first ordered Facebook banned and a few days later restored.

In the interim Pakistan was made to look like a foolish country with foolish people who did not have any idea about what was good for them and what was not.

But surely, some of them will know what is going about on the Internet, particularly from bloggers from Sindh and Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa about the ethnic makeup of the Supreme Court.

I say what I am saying with extreme humility, and as a good friend and supporter, nay as a loyal servant of an independent judiciary. I merely point out what I do to caution My Lords that parallels are being drawn between the present court and the hanging bench that despatched another Sindhi, that time the brilliant Zulfikar Ali Bhutto via the hangman’s noose: the four Punjabis on the bench convicting and the three non-Punjabis acquitting.

A noose that should never have been used according to Nasim Hassan Shah, one of the hanging judges, in several interviews he has given over the last five or so years.

What is the parallel you might well ask? ZAB, an elected leader of great note within the country, and of world renown abroad on the one hand, and the much-maligned Asif Zardari on the other? But this is the whole point, is it not? When the smaller provinces feel badly done by — Bhutto’s judicial murder; Nawab Akbar Bugti’s cold-blooded and targeted killing; the disappearance of many Baloch and Sindhi activists — the seeming relentlessness of Asif Zardari’s pursuit does not enter the equation.

This is what people in positions of authority in this poor and fraying federation must understand, and the sooner the better. Incidentally, the whole argument about ethnicity is just that: ethnicity and not the province in which someone or other resides or is domiciled.

One more time might I suggest too, that in order to demonstrate that they are not only interested in the laying low of the federal government in particular, and politicians and parliament in general, that My Lords step back to give and take some respite, and call other weighty matters before them in suo motu actions as well? At the top of which very long list is the matter of the disappeared which is really attaining alarming proportions.

Critically, it seems an absolute exercise in futility to have a retired judge heading a tribunal of inquiry on the disappeared when a bench of the Supreme Court itself cannot (will not?) summon an army officer above the rank of colonel before it.

To revert to the terrible atrocity perpetrated on our Ahmadi brothers and sisters, first off, my deep gratitude to the Pakistan Army for burying with full military honours the well-considered Maj-Gen (retd) Nasir Ahmed Chaudhry, a 90-year old gentleman who was gunned down in cold blood with the worshippers. Well done, my army, and may this spirit of loyalty and fairness and rectitude guide the high command in other matters too. Today I am a proud former soldier.

My piece of last week was more a personal journey in time: remembering old friends and recalling a time when there was no distinction between Sunnis and Shias and Ahmadis and Bohris and Aga Khanis and what have you, each worshipping his God in his own way, but all equal citizens of the state. This week we must look at the reaction of the state to the killings of Ahmadis as compared to that which is put on display when others are similarly butchered by people who cannot abide those who do not subscribe to their own, narrow beliefs.

For, it is a sad fact that others, whether they be Shias or Sunnis of this or that sect and creed and belief, all have been targets of the obscurantist killers of humanity. Indeed, our Christian and Hindu and Sikh brothers and sisters have likewise been targeted by cruel murderers. But every time that some outrage has taken place, political leaders have bestirred themselves and visited the homes of those killed. Why not this time?

The Ahmadis might be considered non-Muslim by the state; surely they are still Pakistani? Surely, then, all of the protections and succour that a state should provide its citizens are to be extended to them too?

Far more than this, please note that the compensation which is announced immediately for those killed or injured as a result of such wanton acts in the case of others, was announced five days after the event in the case of the Ahmadis (Rs500,000 and 100,000 respectively for those killed and injured). Indeed, look at the language used while announcing compensation: “Jo maraygaey” for those who were killed. Surely there are kinder terms that could have been used, such as “Jo jaan bahak huay”; “Jo halaak huay”; even “Jo faut huay”!

Why are we so cruel towards the poor Ahmadis, can some one please tell me?

Let me add in passing that my Ahmadi friends tell me that the reply of their community to the offer of compensation is that the community is well placed to look after its own, thank you very much, and that the compensation which is to be paid should be transferred to the people of Hunza-Gojal for the relief work which is ongoing and which will surely increase as the disaster widens.

Pakistan is a sad, sad place my friends; a twisted and pitiless and heartless caricature of what our founding fathers had in mind. I am heartbroken. Kudos, however, to Nawaz Sharif for openly saying that the Ahmadis are our brothers. Of course, it is another matter that the obscurantist elements have jumped down his throat! More strength to him I say.

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk

©2010 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved

URL: www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-conten...place-indeed-860-sk-04

Violence against us enjoys ‘legal sanction’: Ahmadis

---The News International, Pakistan

Monday, May 31, 2010, Jamadi-us-Sani 16, 1431 A.H.

Violence against us enjoys ‘legal sanction’: Ahmadis

Monday, May 31, 2010
By our correspondent

LAHORE

AHMADIYYA Community Director Mirza Ghulam Ahmed has alleged that all violent acts against the community members enjoy ‘legal sanction’.

Addressing a press conference at the community’s worship place in Garhi Shahu on Sunday, he lamented that since 1974, those associated with the Jamaat had been facing prejudicial treatment, and were even losing their lives at the hands of terrorists.

He said that 95 innocent people lost their lives in the attacks on two centres of the community where they had gathered to offer prayers, and asked wasn’t it the duty of the provincial government to protect them?

Mirza Ghulam Ahmed said the Ahmadiyya community was declared non-Muslim in 1974 by the government through a constitutional amendment and since 1984, the members of the Jamaat had not been able to hold a major gathering. He said the last gathering of the community took place in 1983 and afterwards, their public activities were banned, but those who wanted to eliminate the community members were allowed to hold event. He said the government had also imposed a ban on their prayer call.

To a question about the findings of investigation of Friday tragedy, Mirza Ghulam Ahmed said that so far the Punjab government had not taken the community on board regarding the matter. He said the Ahmadiyya community had played a great role in the Pakistan Movement and later defended the homeland against any aggression. He said the members of the community fought battles for the country and sacrificed their lives but unfortunately, they were declared ‘Wajibul Qatal’ by different elements of the society. He also protested against the display of banners against the Ahmadiyya community, saying a planned campaign against the Jamaat continued unabated.

To a query about the involvement of the Research and Intelligence Wing (RAW) in the Friday carnage, he said he did not think it proper to comment on it. He said the community members were living in India as well as in Pakistan and they had affiliation with their respective countries. The community also issued the list of people who lost their lives in the attacks on the worship places.

Meanwhile, the message of Head of the Ahmadiyya Community Mirza Masroor Ahmed was also circulated among the media persons.

Mirza Mansoor Ahmed condemned the Friday’s terror attacks in Lahore as barbaric. The message further stated that the situation in Pakistan was extremely grave and for decades, Ahmadis had not been able to live in peace, in fact they were living in constant danger.

Mirza further said, ‘The Ahmadiyya is a peace-loving Jamaat, thus there will be no improper reaction from any Ahmadiyya.’ Reporters also visited the site attacked by the terrorists.

URL: www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=242193

Islamic veil unfolding over Indonesia

---The Malaysian Insider, Malaysia

Tuesday September 22 2009

Islamic veil unfolding over Indonesia

JAKARTA, Sept 22 — Recent moves in Indonesia, including plans by one province to stone adulterers to death, have raised concerns about the reputation of the world’s most populous Muslin country as a beacon of moderate Islam.

The provincial assembly in the western-most province of Aceh — at the epicentre of the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 170,000 people there nearly five years ago — last week decreed the ancient Islamic penalty of stoning to death for adultery.

The decision could still be overturned once Aceh’s new Parliament is sworn in next month.

But many, including Aceh’s governor, the central government in Jakarta, and local businessmen, are concerned about the impact a broadcast public execution by stoning could have on Indonesia’s international reputation.

“The perception and the reaction from the international community would be condemnation,” said Anton Gunawan, chief economist at Bank Danamon, who stressed that he thought an actual stoning unlikely.

“For investors who are relatively familiar with Indonesia and know it is mostly moderate, it might not have an impact. But for people who don’t know Indonesia, they will think ‘Oh, now I have to be careful of it’.”

The Aceh case is one of several showing how hardline Muslim groups are influencing policy in Indonesia.

Local governments, given wide latitude to enact laws under Indonesia’s decentralisation programme, have begun to mandate Syariah regulations, including dress codes for women.

One ethnic Chinese Indonesian businessman, a practising Christian who asked not to be quoted by name, said that he feared if the trend continued it could lead to capital flight by the wealthy Chinese, Christian minority.

“A lot of regional laws are going in that direction. It’s already alarming the way it’s going. It’s a minority who are doing this, but the problem is that the silent majority just keep silent.”

Last year, the government imposed restrictions on Ahmadiyya, a minority Muslim cult, following intense lobbying by hardline Muslim groups to have them banned.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s party also backed an anti-pornography law, which imposes restrictions on certain forms of dance, traditional dress and the depiction of nudity in art.

The law was widely condemned by minority religious and ethnic groups, including the Balinese.

A new film law passed this month goes even further, prohibiting depictions of drug use, gambling and pornography, and requiring film-makers to have their plots approved by the Minister of Culture before production can begin.

“I think the Islamic parties will be a strong influence on the lawmaking of the next cabinet,” said Suma Mihardja, who led a campaign against the anti-pornography law.

“Tension could be directed toward xenophobia, racism, or religious conflict as we see in Malaysia today.”

Other legislation on the cards at the national level includes a bill making halal certification compulsory, instead of voluntary as is now the case.

That would result in higher costs for many food and pharmaceuticals companies, domestic and foreign, ranging from Nestle and Unilever to Kraft Foods Inc and Cadbury Plc, said Suroso Natakusuma from the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“Every single item will need halal certification and an external audit process may follow,” he said.

“The auditor may need to be sent to the country where the product was made to check the process is halal. That means air tickets, hotels. This will mean a lot of extra costs.”

The religiously inspired laws seem to run against the wishes of the electorate.

In the 2009 parliamentary election, the vote for the conservative Islamic party PPP declined 2.8 percentage points to just 5 per cent of the total vote, while the vote for another Islamic group, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), rose only 1.5 percentage points to 9 percent of the total. Overall, the share of votes for Islamic parties has steadily declined.

“People appear to be pandering to an audience that isn’t really asking for anything,” said James Bryson of HB Capital, which invests in Indonesian stocks. “The halal bill is not winning any votes and it’s making an already complex system of certification even more expensive.”

“Many of these laws lately are becoming more conservative,” said Said Abdullah of secular opposition party PDI-P who is on the committee debating the halal bill. “The government is trying to accommodate the Muslim community but they are actually not following our real constitution.”

Yudhoyono, a former general, won a second five-year term in July on promises to continue the battle against corruption and spur economic growth.

In the run-up to elections, Yudhoyono and his secular Democrat Party shifted closer to a clutch of religious parties including the hardline Islamist PKS, as relations with his main coalition partner, Golkar, grew increasingly strained.

Aceh wants to attract more investment, just like many other parts of Indonesia. Holding public executions by stoning, which could be televised and shown around the world, could well make that more difficult. — Reuters

URL: www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/bus...unfolding-over-indonesia

13 Militants Arrested in Pakistan

---The New York Times, USA

13 Militants Arrested in Pakistan
By SALMAN MASOOD
Published: August 24, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani police have arrested 13 suspects in two raids that they said foiled several terrorist attacks, security officials said Monday.

Six men were arrested Monday who belonged to a banned militant group, Sipah-e-Sahaba, and had links with the Taliban militant group linked to Baitullah Mehsud, said Tahir Gujjar, the deputy superintendent of police in Sargodha, a city in northern Punjab Province. Mr. Mehsud is the Taliban leader who is believed to have been killed this month.

The militants who were arrested, Mr. Gujjar said, were planning to attack several places of worship in the Pakistani heartland of Punjab: Shiite mosques, churches and a place of worship of the Ahmadiyya sect, which the government considers not Muslim. The authorities also said the men wanted to blow up broadcast towers of Telenor, a Norwegian telecommunications company.

Seven other suspects were arrested in the southern port city of Karachi on Sunday. The police, acting on a tip from intelligence sources about an imminent terrorist attack, arrested seven men from the outlawed group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, security officials said Monday.

In the Monday arrests, the police, acting on intelligence information, captured three men in a predawn raid at a bus terminal, and under interrogation, they disclosed the location of others, Mr. Gujjar said. One of the arrested, Hafiz Abu Bakar, was the main leader of Sipah-e-Sahaba (Army of the Companions of the Prophet) in a town near Sargodha, he said. Sargodha is the base of two squadrons of Pakistan Air Force F-16s.

Private television news networks broadcast the images of the men arrested Monday. The authorities presented the heavily bearded men to the media, blindfolded and with hands tied behind their backs. A cache of weapons the authorities said had been recovered from them was displayed on a table.

Saud Mirza, a senior Karachi police official, said the raid in Karachi recovered 3 suicide jackets; 4 Kalashnikov automatic rifles; 2 gas masks; 33 pounds of explosives; and about 5 pounds of heroin. Mr. Mirza said the suspects were involved in drug trafficking to finance their activities.

One of the men arrested, Muhammad Shahzad, who is known as Phelavan, or the Wrestler, is believed by Pakistani intelligence to have been a close associate of Amjad Hussain Farooqi, a well-known militant leader involved in an assassination attempt against the former president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf.

Mr. Farooqi, who was killed in a shootout in southern Pakistan in 2004, was implicated in the beheading of Daniel Pearl, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, two years earlier.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a sectarian group founded in the mid-1990s with close ties to Al Qaeda, has often singled out Shiite Muslims using suicide attacks. More recently, it has been active in recruiting suicide bombers. A report this month from Jane’s intelligence group called Lashkar-e-Jhangvi “perhaps the country’s most extreme and feared militant group.”

“LeJ members have traditionally assumed new identities and operated in small cells that disperse after completing their missions, making it difficult for the Pakistani authorities to completely eradicate the group,” the Jane’s report said. “However, many of its leaders and members have been killed or jailed in recent years and there is little evidence that it remains a coherent organization with centralized structures.”

In an attack on Monday, gunmen killed an Afghan television journalist and severely wounded another in northwestern Pakistan, The Associated Press reported. Janullah Hashim Zada, who worked for the Afghanistan-based Shamshad TV, was gunned down as he traveled on a public minibus from Torkham in the Khyber tribal region to the northwestern frontier city of Peshawar, The A.P. reported, citing a Khyber Agency official, Omair Khan.

Mark McDonald contributed reporting from Hong Kong.

URL : www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/world/asia/25pstan.html?_r=2&hp

Islamic challenge to Indonesia’s democracy

-- The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Point Counterpoint

Islamic challenge to Indonesia’s democracy
Sadanand Dhume

AGAINST the backdrop of carnage at Islamabad’s Marriott hotel, terrorist attacks on the US embassy in San’a and the Indian embassy in Kabul, and the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Algeria, few places in the Muslim world appear as placid as Indonesia. It’s been three years since the country’s last major terrorist bombing; Al Qaeda’s local affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah, is on the run. Democracy has blossomed: Parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 2009 will be the third consecutive free ballot since the end of General Suharto’s 32-year reign in 1998.

Both the president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and the principal opposition leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri, reflect the principles of tolerance and inclusiveness bequeathed to the country by its founding fathers at independence. The Indonesian press is Southeast Asia’s freest, its cinema the region’s most vibrant.

Beneath the surface, though, Indonesian society is in ferment. Earlier this year, clerical diktats and repeated mob violence forced the government to effectively ban the Ahmadiyya, a beleaguered Islamic sect considered “heretical” by some Muslims for revering its founder alongside the prophet Mohammed.

In June, in an incident rich with irony, members of the vigilante group Islamic Defenders Front, wielding bamboo staves, attacked peaceful demonstrators rallying for religious freedom at the National Monument, an iconic symbol of Indonesian unity. Dozens of district governments have enacted sharia-inspired regulations, including mandatory dress codes, compulsory Koran reading tests for students and couples seeking to marry, and vice squads loosely modeled on those in Saudi Arabia and Taliban-era Afghanistan.

In September, protesters from the Hindu island of Bali took to the streets to force parliament to postpone passage of a so-called anti-pornography bill whose broadly worded restrictions on clothing and artistic expression could potentially penalise Balinese culture and jeopardise its tourism-dependent economy. Bali contributes the lion’s share of Indonesia’s tourism earnings, estimated at $5.3 billion in 2007.

Behind the anti-pornography bill stands the fundamentalist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), the dark bloom at the heart of Indonesia’s democratic flowering. Modeled on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and fired by the same utopian dream of bringing all aspects of society and the state in line with the allegedly God-given commands of sharia law, the party subscribes to an assertive credo increasingly visible from Morocco to Mindanao: Islam is the solution.

Powered by highly motivated cadres, aided by an image of sea-green incorruptibility and helped along by the disunity and ideological incoherence of mainstream parties, the PKS has taken just 10 years to transform itself from a bit player to a major force in national politics.

Currently it’s the seventh largest party in parliament and holds three seats in President Yudhoyono’s cabinet. Trained party cadres multiplied twelvefold from 60,000 in 1999 to 720,000 in 2007. Earlier this year, the PKS capped a run of local and provincial electoral victories by claiming the governorships of populous West Java and North Sumatra. Armed with this momentum, it stands poised to become the third or fourth largest party in next year’s parliamentary elections.

The PKS juggernaut raises questions about the ability of Indonesia’s moderate mainstream to contain a strident minority whose ultimate goals are at odds with the nation’s founding principles and with the respect for individual rights at the heart of liberal democracy. To be sure, many PKS supporters exhibit a certain idealism; they’re usually more concerned with ending graft in government than with stoning adulterers.

Nonetheless, party cadres and top leaders – often educated in Middle Eastern or Pakistani institutions – hew to the harsh vision of Egyptian Islamists Sayyid Qutb and Hassan al-Banna and their Pakistani contemporary Abul Ala Maududi. To them, the faith makes no distinction between religion and politics.

It’s a complete belief system that concerns itself not merely with prayer, fasting, alms for the poor and the Haj pilgrimage, but also with elections, governance, commerce and diplomacy. At an individual level, personal decisions are surrendered to the collective: All women must don the headscarf and embrace segregation. Men are forbidden gold, silk, cigarettes and alcohol.

PKS leaders, aware that their imported ideology goes against the grain of Indonesia’s traditionally open and inclusive ethos, downplay their pedigree by emphasising their anti-corruption credentials. Nonetheless, the party’s claims of moderation are belied by its record.

It has been full-throated in support for Jemaah Islamiyah kingpin Abu Bakar Bashir, who spent 26 months in jail for involvement in the 2002 Bali bombings. It consistently backs sharia values over human rights, supporting the persecution of the Ahmadiyya and stoutly opposing attempts to have sharia-inspired bylaws declared unconstitutional.

It displays a self-conscious attachment to pan-Islamic causes from Palestine to the southern Philippines. In Indonesia, the PKS project sends a disquieting signal to religious minorities, non-conformist women, and secular and heterodox Muslims. For the region more broadly, where economic development has long been based upon political predictability and a pro-Western outlook, it signals a period of uncertainty and flux.

Nor does the PKS need to claim formal power to diminish Indonesia’s prospects. The examples of Egypt and Pakistan, where the Islamist movement has gained social and political clout over the past 35 years without ever taking office, serve as a caution.

In both countries, as in Indonesia, Islamists consistently stoke anti-Western sentiment. Scriptural certainty has gradually stifled science and the spirit of inquiry. Foreign investors shy away from long-term commitments, especially in manufacturing. Non-Muslims live circumscribed and, at times perilous, lives. Terrorism and periodic outbreaks of religious violence are facts of life, and the state’s response is often ineffectual.

The crux of the problem lies in Islamism’s incompatibility with modernity. In the PKS version of women’s rights, for instance, the decision whether or not to wear the headscarf is made by society or the state rather than the individual. Similarly, when it comes to minorities, the party ideology replaces the modern ideal of equality for all with the medieval concept of de facto second-class status as “protected peoples.”

Though the party, packed with engineers and doctors, cultivates a technology-savvy image, its ethos is in fact antithetical to scientific advancement. PKS cadres show not the slightest skepticism toward the unverifiable claims of religion. They overwhelmingly reject the theory of evolution in favor of the crackpot creationism espoused by the Turkish pamphleteer Harun Yahya.

In economics, though the party leadership makes the right noises about free markets, the rank and file is overwhelmingly suspicious of the largely non-Muslim ethnic Chinese business community. In foreign policy, the rise of PKS signals a shift of focus from Southeast Asia toward largely symbolic pan-Islamic concerns.

The early signs are already visible in high profile visits to Jakarta by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and the use of Indonesia’s place on the UN Security Council to water down criticism of Iran’s rogue nuclear program.

The jury is still out on whether Indonesia will evolve into a benign liberal democracy or an Islamist-dominated state that permits elections but suppresses individual rights, whether it will regain its focus on the economic betterment of its people or dissipate its energies on the emotive politics of pan-Islamism, whether it will emulate manufacturing-driven Vietnam or commodities-dependent Nigeria.

Unlike most Muslim-majority nations, Indonesia can draw on the strengths of a non-sectarian constitution, a secular elite, an essentially open-minded population and examples of successful multicultural neighbors such as Singapore and Australia. Unfortunately, as recent history shows, these may not be enough to blunt the rise of a shrewd and disciplined movement determined to remake the nation in its image.

Sadanand Dhume is a fellow at the Asia Society in Washington, DC, and the author of My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist.

URL: www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=59715

Ahmadis told to remain in refuge center

-- The Jakarta Post, Indonesia

Headlines Wed, 10/22/2008 10:42 AM

Ahmadis told to remain in refuge center

Panca Nugraha, The Jakarta Post, Mataram

West Nusa Tenggara Police said Tuesday hundreds of Ahmadiyah members should remain in their current refuge rather than return to their home villages, in a move hailed as the police’s failure to provide security.

But the police also promised to resolve the refugee issue. The Ahmadiyah members are currently staying at the Transmigration Transit Center in Mataram.

“We very much respect their basic rights, including demands to return them to their home villages. However, there is something more essential now with regard to their safety. They are currently safer in the refuge,” West Nusa Tenggara Police chief Brig. Gen. Surya Iskandar told The Jakarta Post in Mataram.

He said several Ahmadiyah representatives had met him to ask about plans for their future, having already lived in the shelter for the past three years.

“I also asked them whether they feel safe staying in the shelter, and they say yes,” Surya said.

Surya added the police would keep addressing the issue and stick to their policy of serving and protecting the public, including Ahmadiyah members.

On the legal status of the hundreds of Ahmadiyah members in the refuge, Surya said it was under the government’s authority.

“Our domain is security, because it’s our job basically. But bear in mind the issue is not only the responsibility of the provincial administration, but also the government in general,” he said.

He stressed the police would support and enforce the provincial administration’s policy on the Ahmadiyah refugee issue should the government decide to return them to their homes and should the wider community accept them.

“The decision is unclear – it could be this year, or three years from now. But according to us, the Ahmadiyah members are safer in the shelter for the time being,” Surya said.

Some 33 families, comprising 137 Ahmadis, have lived in the transit center since being forced from their homes in Ketapang hamlet, Gegerung village in Lingsar district, West Lombok regency, in February 2006.

In Central Lombok regency, 57 Ahmadis from 15 families are still taking refuge at the former Praya Hospital after being evicted from their homes in Praya subdistrict, Praya district, in June 2006.

Ahmadiyah is considered heretical by many mainstream Muslims for its recognition of founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a prophet, despite Islamic tenets insisting Muhammad was the final prophet and no prophet could come after him.

The group eventually split into two schools of thought, with one still recognizing Ahmad as a prophet and messiah, and the other considering Ahmad simply a reformer, not a prophet.

URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/...-told-remain-refuge-center.html