Islamic hard-liners in Jakarta break up tolerance rally

June 1, 2008

JAKARTA, Indonesia: Islamic hard-liners broke up a religious tolerance rally Sunday, beating demonstrators with bamboo sticks and calling for the deaths of members of a Muslim sect they consider heretical, witnesses said.

About 200 Christians, moderate Muslims and members of Ahmadiyah — an Islamic group the government is considering banning — gathered at the National Monument in the nation’s capital of Jakarta to celebrate the country’s tradition of pluralism, said Gunawan Mohamad, a prominent magazine publisher who took part in the rally.

At least 12 people were injured and four of them were taken to hospitals after members of the Islamic Defenders Front rushed the square waving flags and swinging sticks, organizer Anick Tohari said.

“Repent or die,” shouted men dressed in green and white Islamic outfits as they punched and kicked bleeding protesters, video footage showed.

Children and elderly women demonstrators were caught up in the clash.

“We were suddenly attacked by armed people. Some of us were hurt and a car was damaged,” Mohamad said.

Ahmadiyah, considered heretical by fundamentalists, has been targeted since a government commission recommended in April that it be outlawed.

Its followers have been persecuted for decades after religious edicts, which deemed their faith deviant from traditional Islamic teachings, were issued by the leading Muslim organizations.

“Ahmadiyah has been declared as heretical, so holding a rally can be considered as a crime,” said Munarman, a spokesman for the alliance of militants. Like many Indonesians, he goes by a single name. “They are asking for it. We will not stop until they are completely disbanded.”

Indonesia is a secular country with a history of religious tolerance. But in recent years an extremist fringe has grown louder. The government, which relies on the support of Islamic parties in Parliament, has been accused of caving in to that support.

Many mainstream Muslims dislike the 80-year-old Ahmadiyah, which is banned in conservative Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, because it does not consider Muhammad to be the final prophet.

Ahmadiyah is a registered, legal organization in Indonesia.

Local police chief Col. Heru Winarko said the rally deviated from a prearranged route, making it impossible for authorities to prevent the attack.

The demonstrators crossed the National Monument area “without asking for our protection,” he said. The site was later secured by hundreds of police, and further violence was apparently prevented.

Source: International Herald Tribune The Persecution

An Open Letter for People’s Consultative Assembly Speaker

This article published in Koran Tempo, 18th February 2006.

His Excellency Speaker of People’s Consultative Assembly Hidayat Nur Wahid

Let me convey my deepest condolence upon your statement as quoted by Antara News at 6th of February 2006. Your response on Jamaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia’s request for political asylum to Canada and Australia, who were persecuted in their homeland, had astonished me.

You said that their request of political asylum was weird. Is it weird for persecuted citizens, who were unprotected by their government, to ask for help from other countries? Isn’t it weirder to know that an Indonesian citizen, who was born and growing up in Indonesia, can be expelled from his own homeland just because of adhering different belief? Isn’t it weirder to see that an Indonesian was forbidden to perform religious worship in the mosque, while the constitution guarantee freedom to every resident to adhere to their respective religion and to perform their religious duties in accordance with their religion and that faith? Isn’t it weirder to find that the head of district made a decision letter (of banning Ahmadiyah teaching) that clearly violated the constitution without any warning from higher authorities?

I want to recall about your statements quoted by Antara News: ”In fact, the problem of Ahmadiyah will not be complicated if only they were consistent in being Muslim just as any other democrat Muslims in Indonesia.” “Why do not those people return to the Islamic mainstream teaching without such prophet of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.” “Once they profess the religion of Islam, they have very clear boundary. I think it is better for them to be here in Indonesia and become Muslim society as any other societies to present an Indonesian nation.” “What is the matter of being (only) Muslim?”

I hardly can understand why People’s Consultative Assembly Speaker issued these statements, which raised very deep complexity. There are several impediments for this. First, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s progressive statements regarding freedom of religion. One of them asserted that state shall not interfere the citizen’s belief and faith.

If you, as a speaker of People’s Consultative Assembly, assumed that Islam has a definite boundary and measurement, therefore the state apparatus have the right to use this single measurement to persecute and expel the citizens, then do you regard President Yudhoyono’s statement subversive? On the other hand, would MUI (Indonesian Council of Ulama)’s fatwa of banning Ahmadiyah teaching, be included as violation against the constitution?

Second, your call upon the Ahmadis to return to Islam as any other Indonesian democrat Muslims, to me, is a contradictio in terminis. I think that the democrat Muslim respects other Muslim’s belief although it is not in accordance with his own belief. Democrat Muslim dares to be different and defend the right of anyone for having different perception and opinion.

Third, you simplified the problem and belittled other’s belief when you asked: what’s the matter of being (only) Muslim just as any other Muslim? Whatever argument behind one’s belief (and I think the Ahmadis have very strong argument for this, however deep your belief is that Muhammad is the last prophet). No one may belittle and deride their belief. Furthermore, the Ahmadis had been in Indonesia since before its independence.

Fourth, I believe that different spectrum of Indonesian Muslim groups is sunnatullah (God’s law). If we ignore this persecution, not only it will victimize the Ahmadis, but also other group that against the mainstream.

Fifth, I am definitely sure that this beloved country has a clear constitution that protects freedom of religion, including Ahmadiyah. I am sure that you understand well that state has ratificated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights, and also approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, and had human rights law. That is why I think that your statements were unproductive –not to say reckless- no matter whether you conveyed it on your capacity as speaker of People’s Consultative Assembly, or as former chairman of Justice and Welfare Party, or even as individual.

This open letter is a form of sense belonging from an Indonesian citizen who does not want this country being destroyed by the flames of hatred and egoism, and who wishes for having wise and sensible leaders.

Source: JIL