Indonesia Restricts Ahmadiyah

CAIRO – Several Indonesian provinces have prohibited the activities of Al-Ahmadiya minority group in an effort to prevent the eruption of social conflicts in the world’s most populous Muslim country.

“Followers, members and Ahmadiyah sect board members are prohibited from conducting activities in any form, especially those deemed to deviate from Islamic teachings,” West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan told the Jakarta Post on Friday, March 4.
Under the new order, Ahmadiyah members are ordered to take down signs identifying their mosques and schools.
Their signboards containing the name of the organization must also be taken down from public places, including mosques and schools.
The order also bans Ahmadiyah members from spreading their teachings orally, in writing or through electronic media.
They are also ordered to re-educate and re-integrate themselves within mainstream Islam.
“The mosques, currently known to be owned by Ahmadiyah, become public property that all Muslims can enter,” Heryawan said.
The ban follows a similar one by South Sulawesi Governor Syahrul Yasin Limpo, who banned Ahmadiyah activities in public.
Syahrul said the Ahmadiyah sect was neither registered with the administration as a mass organization nor a religious organization.
“For that reason, I don’t think it should be a problem should the administration prohibit its activities here. We also won’t give them a permit [to practice their religion publicly],” said Syahrul.
A similar ban was also being considered by Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo.
“If necessary, we can even go further to not only issue a gubernatorial decree,” he said, according to the Jakarta Post.
“But instead issue a bylaw on this. The administration will have a discussion with the City Council.”

Violence

Stopping short of banning the sect altogether, human rights activists criticized the ban, arguing that it would justify violence against Ahmadis.
But Indonesian officials argue that the new regulation aim at preventing any social conflicts from breaking out.
“We want to protect the Ahmadiyah community from anarchic actions. If there are violations of the 12-point agreement, let the authorities deal with it,” Sugiyanto, head of the West Java High Prosecutor’s Office, said.
“This is no longer a mere call but has been laid down into written regulations. The public should not take matters into their own hands.”
The activities of Ahmadiyah group have been long criticized as deviating from main stream Islam.
Over the past three weeks, members of the minority Ahmadiyah group came under attacks in Umbulan village in Pandeglang district, Banten.
The attackers killed three people and injured six others.
Some observers, however, blamed members of the Ahmadiya group for the violence.
Sugiyanto said the minority group has violated a 2008 decree banning the group from preaching its ideology, which deviates from the Islamic teachings.
Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim state with Muslims making up around 85 percent of its 237-million population.

Source: OnIslam