Grave of Ahmadi dug up in West Java

NATIONAL Fri, 03/04/2011 9:12 PM

Grave of Ahmadi dug up in West Java

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The remains of a deceased Ahmadiyah follower in Bandung, West Java, were found Thursday after his grave had allegedly been dug up shortly after his funeral.

“It happened [on Thursday]. It is true, the grave of [an Ahmadi] from the Buni Jaya chapter was dug up by unknown parties, and the corpse was just left there,” Ahmad Sulaeman from the Priangan Barat chapter of Jemaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia said Friday, as quoted by kompas.com.

Sulaeman said the remains were of an Ahmadi from Bogor named Ahmad Mulyadi, whose family had been from Buni Jaya, and thus requested he be buried there.

The remains had been brought from Bogor to Bandung for burial on Thursday.

After the funeral was finished at about 9.30 a.m, a group of people had come allegedly asking the cemetary keepers to dig up the grave again.

Priangan Barat Jemaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia coordinator said he deeply regretted the incident.

“… We hope the officers take legal action, especially because [this violates] the governor’s regulation. The regulation is said to set sanctions against people conducting acts of violence against Ahmadiyah followers,” Rafiq Ahmad said.

Under the regulation, Ahmadis are prohibited from conducting religious activities openly, and local residents are prohibited from carrying out acts of violence against them.

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URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/03/04/grave...java.html

Body of Ahmadiyah Follower Dug Up in Bandung

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Body of Ahmadiyah Follower Dug Up in Bandung

Antara & JG | March 04, 2011

An unidentified group of people has dug up the body of an Ahmadiyah follower in Bandung, West Java and left it abandoned in the graveyard.

The damaged tomb belonged to Mulyadi, 55, of Buni Jaya village who was buried on Thursday . Shortly after the burial, a group of men came and forced the gravedigger to take the body out of the tomb.

“It’s true that the tomb of our follower from Buni Jaya was dug out,” a spokesman for the Ahmadiyah congregation in Bandung, Ahmad Sulaeman said.

“He was from Bogor but his family lives in Buni Jaya and they wanted him to be buried there,” he added.

According to Ahmad, Mulyadi was buried at 9.30 a.m. on Thursday at Buni Jaya public cemetery. Half an hour later a group of men came and forced the grave digger to unearth the body and leave it in the grave yard. The family and a number of Ahmadiyah followers later took the body and buried it on the property of another Ahmadiyah follower.

A spokesman for the Indonesia Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI), Firdaus Mubarik, told the Globe that the incident had dangerous implications.

“This is very dangerous because it shows that haters will do anything to attack Ahmadiyah,” he said, adding that he hoped the incident would not be repeated elsewhere.

“We will probably have to bury our followers on a special land, separate from the public cemetery. We already did it in East Lombok where the Ahmadiyah cemetery is side by side with a Christian cemetery,” Firdaus said.

The national secretary of Ahmadiyah Indonesia, Zafrullah Pontoh was at a loss for words when contacted by the Globe.

“I don’t know what else to say… It was a very bad thing, I just hope it won’t happen again,” he said.

Meanwhile, the coordinator of Bandung’s Ahmadiyah congregation, Rafiq, expressed regret for the incident.

“We are deeply troubled by this. We hope the police will catch the perpetrators and punish them because we consider this a violent act.”

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/body...bandung/426738

Indonesia Clerics Alleging Ahmadiyah Ties Protest Candidates

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Indonesia Clerics Alleging Ahmadiyah Ties Protest Candidates

Yuli Krisna | January 25, 2011

Bandung. In yet another blow to the beleaguered Ahmadiyah community, a group of Islamic clerics in Garut, West Java, have formally objected to the three candidates for district secretary on the grounds that they may be from the sect.

In a hearing at the district legislature on Monday, dozens of clerics and community elders said the three men nominated for the post by the district head — Iman Ali Rahman, Hermanto and Indriana Soemarto — were “suspected of following Ahmadiyah teachings.”

Ahmad Hidayat, one of the clerics, said this was grounds for the district head to “repeal all the nominations made earlier.”

Legislative speaker Irfan Suryanagara pointed out that there were no provisions forbidding members of the minority Islamic sect from seeking office.

“All citizens are guaranteed equal legal standing. That’s the law,” he said.

However, he conceded to demands that candidates be questioned about their backgrounds.

“If they’re believed to be from a certain element of society, we have to look into whether the allegations are true,” he said.

District head Aceng Fikri labeled the allegations by the clerics questionable, but he declined to comment on whether he would nominate an Ahmadiyah follower to his administration.

“I’m not going to comment on it because I’m bound to be accused of discrimination,” he told the Jakarta Globe.

He stressed none of the candidates were Ahmadis.

“They’ve been accused of being Ahmadiyah, but there’s nothing to indicate this, so we could be dealing with a baseless accusation here,” he said.

He added that one of the candidates, Iman, had even gone so far as to sign a sworn statement before a group of clerics to deny he was an Ahmadi.

He said all three candidates had met the requirements to become district secretary, a post second in command to the district head and his deputy.

“For that reason, I refuse to withdraw their candidacies and will stick with my decision,” Aceng said.

Members of the Ahmadiyah continue to face acts of discrimination and outright oppression by mainstream and hard-line Muslims across much of the country, including West Java.

In October, a mob of 200 looted homes and burned down a mosque and school belonging to an Ahmadiyah community in Bogor.

Similar attacks have also occurred recently in Cianjur, Sukabumi, Garut, Tasikmalaya, Ciamis and Kuningan, while in West Nusa Tenggara, an Ahmadiyah community purged from its village in 2006 has been forced to live in a “temporary” shelter and denied permission to return home.

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesia...candidates/418818