Rights group Amnesty International demanded on Wednesday that Indonesian authorities drop blasphemy charges against Tajul Muluk, a local Shiite leader displaced from his village in East Java’s Madura Island, who is currently under police detention.

Tajul was displaced with over 300 other Shiite villagers on Dec. 29, when an anti-Shiite mob of some 500 people attacked and burned houses, a boarding school and a Shiite place of worship in Nangkrenang village in Sampang, Madura.

Afterwards most of the Shiite who were displaced by the attack returned to Nangkrenang, but Tajul and about 20 other villagers, including his family, were prevented from returning to the village by the attackers, who reportedly threatened to kill them if they returned, and by police. Read more