Hans David Tampubolon, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Bekasi municipality has officially banned the religious practice of the Ahmadiyah sect on Thursday, a move pluralists deemed as the legitimation of a violation of the spirit of the Constitution.
The head of the Bekasi Agency for State Unity, Politics and Community Protection, Agus Dharma, said that the issuance of the decree banning Ahmadiyah’s religious practices was passed in order to meet the demands of local people.
1. The unity of Indonesia, 2. Belief in the one and only God. 3. Democracy guided by the inner wisdom in the unanimity arising out of deliberations amongst representatives 4. Social justice for the all of the people of Indonesia
“Ahmadiyah activity has caused unrest among Bekasi residents. [The decree was] issued to prevent conflicts resulting from different beliefs among local residents,” Agus said.
The decree was signed by acting Bekasi mayor Rahmat Effendi, and involved all city institutions contained under the Regional Consultative Council (Muspida).
The decree accentuated a 2008 joint ministerial decree, and an Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) edict from 2005, demanding Ahmadiyah be disbanded because it was heretic and blasphemous.
There are around 200 Ahmadiyah followers in Bekasi, according to the city administration.
Commenting on this latest development in Bekasi, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Usman Hamid said it was time for all civilians to rise up and conduct forms of civil disobedience in protest against a government that has legitimazed a discriminative regulation that basically violated the spirit of the Constitution, which guarantees people’s religious freedoms and rights.
“Civil disobedience is not intended as a violation of the law but as a [peaceful] protest. The law, right now, no longer represents the rights of minorities,” Usman told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
Usman also said that the Bekasi administration’s move was a sign that the values of democracy in the country have faded away.
Categories: Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, Indonesia, Religion
Indonesia is a republic and not a loose federation of municipalities or city states. Therefore the municipalities have no legal jurisdiction to take such decisions.
If such illegal precedence in Bogor and now in Bekasi goes unnoticed then anarchy is bound to spread all across Indonesia. Other municipalities will follow the same skewed precedence. Ahmadiyyah ban may be followed by Hindu and Christian ban. Subsequently different type of bans may be imposed based on language, origin and so on.
Indonesia needs to wake up!
Indonesia’s ‘leaders’ are letting the Mullahs dictate to them, just like in Pakistan. Can they not see the kind of lawlessness in Pakistan and the religious intolerance there and learn?