Jakarta Post,
Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Nasaruddin Umar has taken a different viewpoint from his superior regarding an attack on an Ahmadiyah mosque in Tasikmalaya, West Java, on Friday.
Nasaruddin was quoted by Antara news agency as saying that the police should take the incident in the Singaparna district seriously, adding that any individuals involved in the attack should be brought to justice.
“This is a national task for all of us. The police must find the identity of the assailants,” he said on Monday.
In response to the same incident, Religious Affairs Minister Surya-dharma Ali said that it was the Ahmadis who must obey the law.
Suryadharma, who chairs the United Development Party (PPP), said that while offenders must be charged, “the Ahmadis must abandon their defiant beliefs”.
He was referring to the 2008 joint ministerial decree banning members of the Ahmadiyah Indonesia Congregation (JAI) from propagating their religious beliefs.
Several Ahmadi groups in the country have been attacked by members of the mainstream Sunni community, who are convinced that Ahmadis violated the ban by spreading their beliefs, mainly that Muhammad is not the last prophet, a heresy according to mainstream Islamic teaching.
Categories: Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, Asia, Democracy, Discrimination, Extremism, Human Rights, Indonesia
there is some hope ….