Qantara:
Indonesia’s brand of Islam is often portrayed by women wearing headscarves smiling in friendly fashion or children playing in front of a mosque. Almost 90 per cent of the island state’s 240 million inhabitants are Muslim.
However, this positive image of a country where different communities and cultures interact peacefully with each other contrasts heavily with the reality of the past ten years……..
Discrimination against Ahmadis
The vast majority of Indonesia’s 200 million Muslims are Sunnis. There are an estimated 100,000 Shias and 400,000 Ahmadis. The Ahmadi community is a religious group that emerged on the Indian subcontinent at the end of the nineteenth century. They consider themselves to be devout Muslims. However, the movement was excluded from the Muslim community just under 40 years ago, and its members are viewed with suspicion and mistrust or are even persecuted in many countries.
In Indonesia, the Ahmadi community has been the target of a number of attacks in recent years. Mubarik Ahmad is the Ahmadi community’s spokesman in Indonesia. He complains that members of the community have been intimidated and terrorized since 2005 and that their prayers and activities have been banned in many districts. Back then, the Indonesian Ulema Council (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI) issue a fatwa declaring Ahmadiyya an “errant sect”. In early 2011, three people were killed in an attack on an Ahmadi house of prayer.