Six die in religious clash in Indonesia

Feb 6, 2011, 9:14 GMT

Jakarta - At least six people were killed when hundreds of Muslims clashed with followers of an Ahmadiyah Islamic minority sect in Indonesia's West Java province of Banten on Sunday, the state-run media said.

The incident took place when more than 1,000 anti-Ahmadiyah protesters picketed the residence of the Ahmadiyah leader in Cikesik sub-district of Pandeglang regency, demanding the minority sect stop practicing their faith, a call rejected by members of the minority sect.

The state-run Antara news agency quoted local officials as saying that the deadly clash was triggered by stabbing of an anti-Ahmadiyah protester by a member of Ahmadiyah minority sect.

Attacks on members of Ahmadiyah have been on the rise since the government authorities issued a decree in 2008 ordering followers of the sect to stop their activity and return to mainstream Islam, or face imprisonment.

In June, a number of people injured when anti-Ahmadiyah protesters were attempted to forcibly close down a Mosque belonging to the Ahmadiyah minority sect in West Java district of Kuningan.

Indonesia's Religious Minister Surydharma Ali in August called for a ban on Ahmadiyah religious practice, claiming that the violence resulted from the Ahmadiyah's failure to adhere to a 2008 decree requiring them to refrain from spreading their faith.

The Ahmadiyah sect views itself as Muslim but it has been branded a heretical group by the Indonesian Ulema Council, the secular country's highest Muslim authority, which has issued a fatwa, or edict, against it.

Mainstream Muslims reject Ahmadiyah's claim of the prophethood of its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908 in India. Most Muslims believe that Mohammed is the last of the Prophets.

Some of the sect's other teachings are also considered deviant by both Sunni and Shia, the two major branches of Islam, and some Muslim countries do not accept the Ahmadiyyas as Muslim.

Human rights activists and civil liberties groups argue that followers of Ahmadiyah - believed to have 200,000 followers in predominantly Muslim Indonesia - are protected under the country's constitution, which guarantees the right to religious freedom.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation with nearly its 235 million people are Muslims. Most of them are moderates who tolerate other beliefs.

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