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Militant Muslims seek ban on Ahmadi sect

Minority group's homes, mosques attacked

By Anthony Deutsch | Friday, July 11, 2008

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SUKABUMI, Indonesia (AP) | The Muslim hard-liners arrived just before midnight, armed with stones, clubs and flammable liquid. Townspeople cowering in fear heard chants of "Destroy! Destroy!" and watched the riotous mob set ablaze the mosque of an offshoot Islamic sect that the attackers view as heretical.

"This time they destroyed our property. If they come back I'm afraid they will target us," said Rina Nurlinawati, a member of the Ahmadiyah sect who was among witnesses to the burning down of the group's mosque in Sukabumi, a quiet, hillside town on Indonesia's main island of Java.

The arson attack was one of several aimed at Ahmadiyah mosques in recent months by an extremist fringe that some Indonesians fear will upset long-held traditions of religious freedom and secularism in the world's most populous Islamic nation.

The attackers, thought to be followers of the radical Islamic Defenders' Front, seemed to have been emboldened by a government announcement in April that it might bow to their demands to outlaw the sect, which is accused of putting its own 19th century founder on par with Islam's prophet Muhammad.

On June 9, the government issued a decree threatening Ahmadiyah followers with five years imprisonment for "activities that are not in accordance with interpretations of the religion of Islam." It is not clear how strictly the measure will be enforced, but it didn't satisfy hard-liners who still want an outright ban.

The vast majority of Indonesia's 235 million people are moderate Sunni Muslims. Most view the roughly 200,000 Ahmadis with suspicion, and the government's move to restrict the sect is widely seen as a bid by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to shore up support among voters for his run for a second term next year.

"Our state is a weak state that doesn't dare to enforce the law if it goes against the religious feeling of the majority," said the Rev. Franz Magnis-Suseno, a Jesuit priest and prominent advocate of interfaith relations. "The state has no right to say you may or may not worship."

Indonesia's constitution protects the people's "right to worship according to their own religion or belief," though Ahmadiyah opponents argue that the group's beliefs violate a blasphemy law from the 1960s.

Ahmadiyah came to Indonesia in 1926 from Punjab, a region straddling the India-Pakistan border, and has branches in 190 countries. The group, which stresses nonviolence and tolerance of other faiths, is banned in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The Ahmadis identify themselves as Muslims, pray five times a day and follow the teachings of the Koran, Islam's holy book. But they hail their founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, as a messiah and prophet. That offends Muslims who consider Muhammad the final prophet in a line of dozens of historical figures in the monotheistic religions, including Moses, Abraham and Jesus.