Indonesian president condemns attack by Muslim hardliners

Jun 2, 2008, 8:21 GMT

Jakarta - Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned Monday a violent attack by Muslim hardliners against interfaith activists and is urging legal action be taken and the perpetrators brought to justice.

'I strongly condemn the act of violence by a certain group of people. I called legal action to be taken against the perpetrators and brought them to justice,' Yudhoyono said, adding that the violence has 'tarnished our country's reputation.'

On Sunday, hundreds of members of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) Muslim hardliner group armed with batons attacked a religious tolerance rally attended by about 200 members of the National Alliance for Religious and Faith Freedom.

They were rallying against a possible government ban on the minority Ahmadiyah sect, deemed deviant by religious authorities in the country.

Yudhoyono also criticized the police for failing to prevent Sunday's attacks. A similar condemnation came from various Muslim and community leaders, while some Indonesian lawmakers called on the government to outlaw the FPI, an Islamic hardliner group known for frequent brutal acts, such as vandalizing nightspots they consider places of 'sin.'

Ahmadiyah, considered heretical by fundamentalists, has been targeted since a government commission recommended in April that the minority sect in the country be outlawed.

In early May, hundreds of the Muslim hardliners attacked and set fire to an Ahmadiyah mosque in West Java and heavily damaged a school building there.

However, civil liberties groups argue that followers of Ahmadiyah are protected under Indonesia's constitution, which guarantees the right to religious freedom. While human rights activists have urged the state to protect the sect's members.

Although the Ahmadiyah followers consider themselves Muslims, mainstream Sunni and Shi'ite Islam do not recognize them, claiming their beliefs are contradictory to the basic tenets of Islam.

The Indonesian Ulema Council, the country's highest authority on Islam, has declared the Ahmadiyah sect heretical for believing its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908 in India, is the last prophet, not Mohammed, who mainstream Muslims worldwide believe was God's final messenger.

Indonesia is home to the world's most populous Islamic nation with nearly 88 per cent of its 225 million people being Muslims. The country has a long history of religious tolerance.