The Star:
BEKASI, Indonesia: A group of minority Ahmadiyah Muslims have been holed up in an Indonesian mosque since authorities shuttered it earlier this month, in a stand-off that starkly illustrates the religious intolerance sweeping the country.
The men were praying at the mosque in Bekasi, west of Jakarta, when scores of police burst in and surrounded it with corrugated iron fencing, brandishing a decree that bans the minority from spreading its religious beliefs.
Now around 20 of them are refusing to leave until officials guarantee they will be allowed to continue worshipping in the mosque – and fear that if they do leave then the building will be taken over.
They believe it was closed under pressure from hardline group the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), in what would be the latest case of radicals targeting the sect.
In a notorious 2011 incident, a lynch mob clubbed, hacked and stoned three Ahmadis to death in western Java. The attackers received only light prison sentences, provoking international outrage.
The targeting of Ahmadis fits with a wider pattern of rising attacks in recent years against religious minorities in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, where most are Sunnis.
