House to summon officials in effort to halt religious violence

Jakarta, NU Online
The House of Representatives said it would summon National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo and Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali for questioning following the deaths on Sunday of three Ahmadiyah sect members at the hands of a mob in Banten.

Lawmakers also called on the government to re-evaluate the 2008 joint ministerial decree restricting the sect’s activities.<<>;br />
Abdul Kadir Karding, chairman of House Commission VIII, which oversees religious affairs, said on Monday that the House would push the government to put an end to attacks on Ahmadiyah followers.

“This week we will summon them [Suryadharma and Timur],” Abdul said. “Possibly also religious figures and the MUI [Indonesian Council of Ulema]. The government has not been proactive in detecting these attacks.”

Abdul urged the National Police to launch an investigation into the attack and arrest anyone involved in the killings. He also asked police to hear sect members’ accounts of the day.

The government, he added, must adopt short- and long-term strategies to prevent further violence against the sect.

“[The freedom to embrace] beliefs must be guaranteed,” he said. “This is the people’s private affair with God.”

The Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy had previously demanded that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono remove Suryadharma from his post for repeatedly failing to react to or even acknowledge acts of religious violence during the past few years. Setara says it recorded 50 attacks against Ahmadis in 2010.

Sunday’s attack prompted the government to convene an emergency meeting that same night. Top security minister Djoko Suyanto called on the Ahmadiyah community to “respect the joint [ministerial] agreement signed in 2008,” referring to the decree banning the sect from worshiping in public and spreading its beliefs.

But Abdul said the decree needed to be re-examined and a dialogue opened with Ahmadiyah followers.

“The government has no right to state that a certain belief is fallacious,” he said. “The MUI at one time declared that the Ahmadiyah belief is fallacious. But must we use violence to show that this belief is wrong?”

Separately, the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) called for the annulment of the decree. PDI-P lawmaker Eva Kusuma Sundari said the party had lost faith in the Ministry of Home Affairs — one of the ministry’s behind the decree — and would petition House Commissions II, III and VIII to take action on the issue.

The party said that in the decree’s place a more thoroughly considered policy on religious harmony needed to be issued, either by presidential decree or in a law. (jg/dar)