Ahmadiyah Attack Trial Begins Under Heavy Security

NEWS

Ahmadiyah Attack Trial Begins Under Heavy Security

Jakarta Globe | April 26, 2011

Roni Pasaroni was one of three Ahmadiyah members killed by a 1,500-strong mob in Cikeusik, Banten, on Feb. 6. The trial for the 12 suspects in the case opens today. (Photo courtesy of JAI)

The opening trial for 12 men facing charges in relation to the deadly attack on an Ahmadiyah community in Cikeusik, Banten, started under tight security on Tuesday at the Serang District Court.

More than a thousand police officers were deployed to stand guard within a 200-meter radius from the court. Two water cannons and three Barracuda armored vehicles were also on stand by.

Police officers inspecting the damaged house of an Ahmadi after it was attacked by an Islamist mob in Pandeglang, Banten, on Feb. 6. The trial of 12 suspects in the attack, which left three Ahmadis dead, opened under heavy security on Tuesday.

“We deployed 1,095 officers,” Banten Police’s head of operations, Sr. Comr. Budiarto, was quoted as saying by the National Police Web site.

All those attending the hearing were required to go through three baggage checks and no private vehicles were allowed in the court parking lot.

Prosecutors were scheduled on Tuesday to read the indictments of the 12 defendants in bloody Feb. 6 incident that left three Ahmadis dead and five severely injured.

The attack, which was filmed and posted on YouTube, saw a mob of about a thousand attacking a house that sheltered 25 members of the minority Islamic sect.

Bebi, 45, is one of the survivors of the Cikeusik attack that saw three people killed. Critics say most media have failed to highlight the victims' plight and instead debated the validity of the unorthodox sect's teachings. (JG Photo/Nivell Rayda)

Human Rights Watch has issued a statement urging authorities to provide full protection for everyone attending the trial.

“For the Cikeusik trial to be a step toward ending religious violence in Indonesia, the police need to ensure the security of everyone in the courtroom,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“Witnesses brave enough to testify, as well as judges and prosecutors, should not have to face intimidation.”

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/as-terrorism.../437317

Muslim cleric named suspect in Cikeusik lynching

NATIONAL Thu, 02/17/2011 8:52 AM

Muslim cleric named suspect in Cikeusik lynching

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Police say they have named a Muslim cleric, identified only with the initial U, as a suspect in the Cikeusik tragedy and have placed him in detention.

“There is another suspect, identified as U. So there are now seven suspects who are being detained,” the National Police spokesman Snr.Com. Boy Rafli Amar told kompas.com on Thursday, in a text message.

The other six suspects have been identified as U, M, E, Y, M, and S. The two last suspects, M and S, surrendered themselves accompanied by their lawyer from the Muslim Defense Team.

The suspects are charged with inciting violence and attacking the Ahmadiyah congregation, brutally killing three of its members.

Boy said the police had questioned 95 suspects, including members of the Ahmadiyah congregation that was attacked.

Mahendradatta from the Muslim Defense Team said the Muslim cleric had been arrested in Bogor after spreading hostile text messages under the name of the Cikeusik Muslim Movement.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/02/17/muslim...lynching.html

Police detain six suspects in Pandeglang Ahmadiyyah attack

NATIONAL Wed, 02/16/2011 6:03 PM

Police detain six suspects in Pandeglang Ahmadiyyah attack

The Jakarta Post

The National Police have detained six suspects for their alleged roles in the recent deadly attack against members of Islamic minority sect Jamaah Ahmadiyah in Cikeusik, Pandeglang, Banten.

“We’ve detained six suspects in relation to the Cikeusik case; the last suspects we questioned yesterday were those with the initials U and I,” National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Ito Sumardi said Wednesday in Jakarta as quoted by Antara.

Four other suspects currently in police detention are known only by the initials M, E, UJ and Y; while two other suspects, M and S, have not yet been detained.

“The National Police continue to search for the two parties involved. We want to reveal a clear account of what happened there, and hope whoever else was involved will report themselves to the police,” Ito said, adding that so far the Ahmadis had only been questioned as witnesses.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved
URL: www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/02/16/police...attack.html

Three Suspects for Mob Attack on Ahmadiyah

Indonesia

Three Suspects for Mob Attack on Ahmadiyah

Zaky Pawas | October 08, 2010

Jakarta. Police in Bogor have identified three suspects in last week’s torching of homes and a mosque belonging to members of the Ahmadiyah sect, but have not yet arrested any of them.

The attack on the evening of Oct. 1 saw a mob of hundreds ransack and burn down houses, schools and a mosque in Cisalada village, home to 600 followers of the minority sect, which is deemed deviant by many mainstream Muslims.

Since then, police have arrested an Ahmadiyah member for allegedly stabbing one of the attackers, a 15-year-old boy, during the incident.

On Friday, Adj. Comr. Zulkarnaen Harahap, the Bogor Police’s chief of detectives, said three of the alleged attackers — identified only as RM, DM and AB — had been named suspects in the case, but would not yet be taken into custody.

“We’re not detaining them because they’ve been vouched for by community leaders and their families. But they will have to report in regularly,” he said, adding that the trio would be charged with assault, vandalism and arson.

Zulkarnaen said the suspects had been questioned by police on Friday afternoon at the Ciampea subdistrict police station.

“During the questioning, all three suspects were cooperative,” he said. “Two of them claimed they didn’t do anything, so we’re going to try to strengthen the evidence that shows they were involved in the incident.”

Copyright 2010 The Jakarta Globe

URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/three-suspects-for-mob-attack-on-ahmadiyah/400378

Protect Ahmadis [Editorial]

---Daily Times, Pakistan

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Second Editorial: Protect Ahmadis

The recent incident of murder of an Ahmadi leader in Ferozewala, a city of Sheikhupura district situated near Lahore, is a sad reflection of how society chooses to treat a section of the minorities, variously known as Mirzais or Qadianis in Pakistan. What is more disconcerting though, is the apathy — rather collusion — of the state, which not only allows such incidents to take place under its very nose, it tends to protect the perpetrators. According to a series of reports published in this paper, Professor Mohammad Yousaf, leader of the Ahmadi community in Ferozewala, had sought police protection against sectarian zealots in his locality who had been threatening him. Allegedly, in response to this, two unidentified assailants shot him dead while he was at his general store. It was with some effort the family managed to lodge the FIR against the two murderers and four abettors known to the victim, who live in the same area. Instead of arresting the accused and investigating further, it is reported that the police let the four abettors go when they visited the police station with PML-N’s member of the Punjab Assembly Pir Ashraf Rasool. Meanwhile, both the police and the nominees in the FIR have been pressurising the family to withdraw the murder case. Alarmingly, even after the ghastly retribution visited upon Mohammad Yousaf, Khatam-e-Nabuwat Youth Wing’s signboard on the main roundabout of the town, which urges believers to kill and maim Islam’s enemies and to socially boycott Ahmadis, has not been removed.

While we are witnessing the gruesome consequences of promoting extremist Islam in the form of suicide attacks, this incident shows another dimension of the free rein given to hate-mongering mullahs. Most often the paranoia and hatred against Ahmadis inspired by self-styled Islamic leaders has taken a murderous turn. Not long ago, a TV presenter incited the wholesale murder of Ahmadis by declaring it an obligation for Muslims, as a result of which two targeted killings took place in Sindh. This continues unabated because of the failure of the concerned authorities to take action against the culprits. Apparently, it is due to a deep bias that runs through the entire system. There is a visible nexus of protection as demonstrated in this case. Whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim, the state is responsible to protect all citizens of Pakistan against oppression. It is these kinds of cases that really require judicial activism, as the legislature and executive have both been found siding with the perpetrators rather than the victims. *

URL: www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\01\13\story_13-1-2010_pg3_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