United States Calls for Religious Tolerance in Indonesia

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United States Calls for Religious Tolerance in Indonesia

March 05, 2011

The United States on Friday called for religious tolerance in Indonesia after several provincial governments banned followers of a minority Islamic sect from practicing in public.

Some provincial administrations in the world’s most populous Muslim country issued a local decree which also banned Ahmadiyah members from showing signs identifying their mosques and schools.

The provincial regulations came after Islamist fanatics brutally murdered last month three Ahmadiyah adherents in Banten. Two days later another mob of enraged Muslims rampaged through the streets and set fire to churches in central Java.

“Recent violence against minority communities and new local regulations restricting religious freedom are damaging Indonesia’s international reputation as a democracy with a tradition of tolerance,” a United States Embassy statement said.

“As a friend of Indonesia, and as a partner in the G20 and other international organizations, we support the overwhelming majority of Indonesians who abhor religious violence and support tolerance,” it said.

“Laws should protect citizens from violence rather than restrict their rights.”

Police failed to intervene to protect the Ahmadiyah, who have been subjected to regular abuse and persecution since their sect was slapped with restrictions at the urging of mainstream Muslims in 2008.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned last month’s attacks but defended a 2008 law banning the Ahmadiyah sect from spreading their faith, which is used by hardliners to justify attacks on the sect.

Human rights activists say the ex-general has repeatedly failed to tackle sources of intolerance in the country of 240 million people, 80 percent of whom are Muslims.

Indonesia’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion but rights groups say violence against minorities including Christians and Ahmadis has been escalating since 2008.

Agence France-Presse

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/united...indonesia/426870

In defense of Islam, vigilante justice in Indonesia

Indonesia Home / Asia / Indonesia

In defense of Islam, vigilante justice in Indonesia

Indonesian government sits idly by as Islamic Defender's Front, called thugs by most, runs amok.

By Sara Schonhardt — Special to GlobalPost
Published: August 23, 2010 06:44 ET in Asia

Indonesian Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab gestures as he delivers a speech to his supporters inside the court room after his trial in Jakarta on Oct. 30, 2008. (Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images)

JAKARTA, Indonesia — They call themselves the Islamic Defenders Front and they say their mission is to stamp out sinful acts and to protect the poor and marginalized.

But the majority of Indonesians in this moderate Muslim nation call them thugs. They say the FPI, as they are known here, are tarnishing the image of both Islam and Indonesia.

In only the last few months the group has been accused of attacking churches, raiding suspected communist conferences and waging assaults against minority religions.

A showdown took place in the Jakarta suburb of Bekasi earlier this month when a stick-wielding mob of FPI members attacked and beat around 20 members of the Batak Christian Protestant Church.

And through it all, Indonesia’s secular government has largely stood idly by and, in some cases, offered support. In most cases the country’s leaders have remained silent, even as FPI attacks grow increasingly frequent and increasingly violent.

The FPI argues that the Batak congregation is worshipping without the proper government permits and is threatening Muslim society by proselytizing.

Bonar Tigor Naipospos, vice chairman of the Setara Institute, which works to promote democracy and peace, said the FPI is using the threat of Christianization to strengthen their position, to gain sympathy and spread their ideology to their followers.

According to a recent study by the institute, acts of violence against Christians are on the rise, which could signal that religious tensions, which always seem to be simmering in Indonesia, are coming to a boil.

“Some politicians in the West use Indonesia as a model of moderate Islam, but behind the surface the embryo of intolerance still exists,” Naipospos said. “And if the Indonesian government doesn’t do something, this embryo will get stronger.”

During an Islamic congress in June, FPI leader Habib Rizieq said evangelicals were Christianizing Muslims by offering them social services like free health care and education. They were also performing hypnosis and constructing illegal churches, he said.

Murhali Barda, the leader of the FPI’s Bekasi branch, had been preparing for a clash.

“My Muslim brothers…!!! Come to Ciketing..!!” He wrote on his Facebook page the day before the attack. “Help our brothers that were walked all over by the Batak people … church business people, moneylenders, pig and dog eaters!”

Angry tweets began trending on Twitter after news of the attack broke, just one among many in recent weeks. Forced church closures and protests against community activity, such as the butchering of pigs, have also made recent headlines.

The occasion forced Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to break his silence on FPI’s attacks. The president, however, said only that anarchic behavior would not be permitted during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

“But it is permitted,” said Sidney Jones, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, which monitors security issues. “The easiest thing would be to arrest the perpetrators, and it’s not clear to me why they have refrained from doing so.”

In 2008, following an assault on a peaceful rally in support of religious freedom, police did arrest nearly 60 FPI members, including Rizieq. The FPI kingpin was later sentenced to 18 months in prison for helping organize the attack against the supporters of Ahmadiyah, an Islamic sect many conservative Muslims consider heretical since they refuse to accept Mohammad as Islam’s final prophet.

But the arrests were mostly a response to public outrage. And while the government stopped short of completely banning the Ahmadis as the FPI had demanded, it did issue a ministerial decree prohibiting Ahmadis from practicing their faith or proselytizing in public, appearing to again side with religious hardliners instead of religious pluralists.

Jones said it was unacceptable that the Indonesian police and military have stood by and let these attacks continue. Individuals in the FPI should be prosecuted for assault, but the police should also be held responsible, she said.

Both Jakarta’s governor and one of its police chiefs attended the FPI’s 12th-anniversary celebration earlier this month in what is thought to have been an attempt to enlist the group’s material, and perhaps political, support.

And even though the Religious Affairs Ministry in March named the FPI among nearly 70 potentially illegal sects because its actions deviated from the country’s accepted Islamic teachings, the government still took no action against the group.

Started with police and military backing in 1998, the FPI was originally part of a group of street-level militias aimed at countering the student-led, democratic reform movement and providing security to then-president B.J. Habibie. The FPI has since gained notoriety for conducting vigilante crackdowns on “un-Islamic” activities, which, before recently, usually only involved aggressive raids on bars and nightclubs during Ramadan.

FPI members say their actions are not antagonistic to Islam and that they are merely upholding their duty to rid society of sin.

“FPI has one mission and one vision, and that is to eliminate tyranny and to enforce truth and justice,” said H. Chep Hernawan, head of the Islamic Reform Movement. “Our ulemas [Muslim scholars] and Muslim warriors are the ones who fought against the colonizers. So, I think it’s normal if we want to enforce Islamic law.”

The FPI are not religious crusaders, however. Ian Wilson, a researcher of radical groups-cum-gangs at Australia’s Murdock University, said its members frame issues in religious terms but are not on the same page ideologically as Islamic terrorist organizations like Jemaah Islamiyah.

“Their whole rationale is to stir up trouble … to be in the public eye,” he said.

Barda, who wears a wrap-around skirt and white skullcap often associated with conservative Islam, said FPI’s activities in Bekasi are based on the wishes of the community, which it works to coordinate and strengthen against people who might pose threats, namely the Christian Batak, an ethnic group originally from the neighboring island of Sumatra.

For more than a month the Batak congregation has been praying in a field in Ciketing, on the outskirts of Jakarta, where demonstrators meet them each Sunday demanding they cease prayers and leave the area.

Christian groups must have the consent of the surrounding community to establish a place of worship, and the hardliners say they are fighting the Batak because they refuse to abide by the law.

But when asked about rumors of declining membership numbers among the FPI, Barda, who likes speaking in idioms, only laughed. He said all he needs to do is produce a magnet and the nails will come to him.

“We are small, but we have many supporters,” he said.

Copyright 2010 GlobalPost — International News

URL: www.globalpost.com/dispatch/indonesia/100822/fpi-islam-vigilante-justice

Sectarian Clashes Surge in a City in Pakistan’s Heartland

Asia Pacific

Sectarian Clashes Surge in a City in Pakistan’s Heartland

Pakistanis gathered recently in Faisalabad outside a Presbyterian church damaged in riots after two Christian brothers were killed.

By SALMAN MASOOD

Published: August 7, 2010

FAISALABAD, Pakistan — This industrial city, famous for its textile exports, has lately become renowned as the center of a new wave of sectarian violence that has gripped Pakistan as militancy and extremism have taken firm root here in central Punjab Province.

Last month, violent clashes broke out between Muslims and Christians after two Christian brothers — Rashid and Sajid Emanuel — were shot dead outside the district courthouse after showing up to face charges of blasphemy.

The New York Times

Faisalabad, in Punjab Province, has become the center of a new wave of sectarian strife.

Immediately, there were fears of rioters’ setting fire to the Christian neighborhood where the brothers had lived, Warispura, a poor suburb with about 100,000 people — as they had done in a similar episode last year in a district nearby.

Blasphemy is a capital crime in Pakistan, and rights activists say the allegations are usually spurious and used to settle personal vendettas or to score political points.

In this case, for instance, the troubles started on July 1 when a handwritten letter defaming the Prophet Muhammad was distributed in a marketplace; it contained the address and telephone numbers of both brothers.

“A thief does not leave behind an ID card,” said Aslam Pervez, 60, a Christian teacher and a neighbor of the brothers. “A grave injustice has been done. The charges were not even proven, and they were killed. Is it justice? Where is the law?”

Analysts say the communal and sectarian clashes often have a local spark — an economic grievance, for instance — that is easily ignited in an atmosphere in which militant groups have been allowed to thrive for years by politicians who use them as a base of support, or have little to gain by standing up to them.

Looking to expand their influence, the groups, too, read the political winds as astutely as they do the local political terrain.

Such groups have thrived for decades in Pakistan, though sectarian violence has ebbed and flowed. Some groups, like Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Sunni militant organization, have largely domestic agendas, while others, like Lashkar-e-Taiba, focus on jihad in India and Afghanistan.

But it can be hard to draw a firm line, and sometimes the domestic groups channel militants to the others.

Under the nearly 10 years of military government that ended in 2008, sectarian violence was relatively subdued, in part because the military did not need to manipulate domestic schisms to maintain control. But civilian politics and sectarian tensions work hand in hand in Pakistan, and recently the violence has flared again. The last bad spasm was also under civilian rule in the 1990s.

Christians are not the only targets of the violence. In February, one person was killed during armed clashes between two Muslim sects. One of the sects then burned down the homes of several leaders of the other sect. Then in April, four members of the minority Ahmadi sect, declared non-Muslim by the country’s Constitution, were gunned down in Faisalabad by masked gunmen thought to be from Sipah-e-Sahaba.

Amir Rana, a terrorism expert, said the level of radicalization had grown and spread across Punjab Province, the country’s heartland. Residents say banned Islamic militant groups have managed to increase their presence and clout in Faisalabad, a city of nearly three million, and its surroundings.

Both Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that India and the United States have blamed for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, maintain offices in neighboring districts, which also serve as recruiting grounds.

As riots broke out on July 19, groups of agitated men, many of whom were said to be armed, tried to make their way to Warispura, the Christian neighborhood, from a neighboring village, Malkhan Wala, which is a known stronghold of Lashkar-e-Taiba, residents of the Christian neighborhood said.

Mr. Rana speculated that local economic competition might have been a motivator. Christians in Faisalabad are settled on land close to roads and railway tracks. “This is precious land,” he said. “Industrialists and builders have their eyes on such properties.”

Mr. Rana said Sipah-e-Sahaba had a strong base among the working class of the city; most Christians are in the working class, too.

Khalid Rashid, vicar general of the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul in Faisalabad, said the acts of violence against minorities, especially Christians, were on the rise, as the militant groups wanted “their presence to be felt.”

Religious minorities are feeling vulnerable and insecure. Christians make up only 5 percent of the population.

Neighbors and family members said the two Christian brothers who were killed had enmity with nobody. Rashid, 31, was a pastor who ran a local prayer group. Sajid, 28, was pursuing an M.B.A. degree.

They were taken into custody after a case was registered against them at the urging of local traders. On July 19, after a court appearance, an unidentified gunman entered the court premises and opened fire in the hallway. Both brothers were shot in the back and died at a hospital. A police officer was wounded. The attacker escaped easily.

The government has ordered a judicial inquiry into the killings. The Punjab police suspended two police officers for security lapses. But the family of the brothers is in hiding. The father, a retired government employee, and his three other sons and a daughter fear being singled out and are afraid to pursue the case.

Joseph Coutts, the bishop of the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, attributed such attacks to the growing intolerance and militancy in Pakistani society.

“These groups have become so strong that they have become a law unto themselves,” he said. He added: “There is a lot of anger amongst Muslims, and there is a revival of militant Islam. Local Christians are seen as linked to the West, the United States, and therefore the fallout.”

Indeed, a city resident, Khurram Shahzad, who lodged the initial complaint with the police against the brothers, claims not to know them personally. Muslims in the Warispura neighborhood said that Christians had been provided financing from abroad to spread Christianity and convert Muslims.

“They had been given money to spread their religion,” said Muhammad Nadeem, 25, an electrician. A crowd of onlookers nodded in agreement.

Waqar Gilani contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on August 8, 2010, on page A10 of the New York edition.

URL: www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/world/asia/08faisalabad.html?_r=1

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