Rights group Amnesty International on Wednesday criticised Indonesia for failing to protect the rights of religious minorities after another attack on followers of an Islamic sect.
In the latest of a string of attacks on the Ahmadiyah group, a mob hurled stones at at least five houses belonging to sect followers late Tuesday in Bogor district, West Java province, local media reported.
Separately, three men are on trial for damaging property and inciting violence in an October attack in another village in the same district. They were allegedly part of a mob which torched houses, schools and a mosque belonging to the Ahmadis, who unlike mainstream Muslims, do not believe Mohammed was the last prophet.
Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific director Saman Zia-Zarifi said the increasing attacks on religious minorities, particularly the Ahmadiyah, showed a “major deterioration of the situation”. “This is not the direction in which we had hoped to see Indonesia move.
This is Indonesia moving in the wrong direction,” he told reporters.
“The central government’s inability or lack of desire to address these issues is potentially catastrophic,” he said. Amnesty this week raised its concerns with the country’s religious leaders and police in “very open, frank and productive” meetings and urged Indonesia to be serious about handling the problem, Zia-Zarifi said.
“The Indonesian government needs to demonstrate that it is serious about dealing with this problem, that it will prevent any more serious cases of violence, and it will provide accountability for the violence that has already occurred,” he added.
Indonesian human rights group Imparsial said it had recorded 56 cases in West Java province in which soldiers allegedly forced Ahmadiyah followers to convert to mainstream Islam. Indonesia’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion but rights groups say violence against minorities including Christians and Ahmadis has been escalating since 2008.
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