Thousands of white-clad Muslims swamped the main streets of Indonesia’s capital yesterday to pressure the president into banning a minority Islamic sect branded “deviant” by top clerics.
More than 4,000 protesters gathered outside Jakarta’s presidential palace before setting off in a motorcycle convoy to police headquarters to demand the government ban Ahmadiyah as well as free radicals jailed after violence early this month.
Unarmed police formed a loose barrier between the palace and protesters from mainstream Muslim parties and fringe Islamist groups, who shouted Allahu Akbar (God is great) and held banners condemning the sect.
A speaker accused the sect of “staining Islam” and demanded that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issue a decree banning the organization.
“We ask first that Ahmadiyah repent, return to Islam or make a new religion. If they don’t want to do that then they must be broken up,” said Mohammed Alwi, a student from an Islamic boarding school outside Jakarta.
“Ahmadiyah is a criminal organization,” another protester said.
The protest comes after the government earlier this month ordered Ahmadiyah, which has peacefully practiced its faith in Indonesia since the 1920s, to stop spreading its belief that Mohammed was not the last prophet.
Ahmadiyah, which has followers around the world, is considered deviant by most Muslims and banned in many Islamic countries.
The ministerial decree stopped short of the ban demanded by Muslim leaders after the country’s top Islamic body issued a fatwa describing the sect as “deviant.”
“There are some that say that decree was a ‘transvestite’ decree, neither man nor woman. I agree,” said protest spokesman Abdul Rashid, a cleric from radical umbrella group the Muslim Community Forum.
The protesters — many wearing white as a symbol of their religious piety — delivered a letter to the palace demanding that the president ban Ahmadiyah, Rashid said.
“If we leave [this issue] too long, that’s a problem because Islam is being stained,” Rashid said, rejecting concerns that a ban would tarnish the country’s long history of pluralism.
“Between us Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, Hindus and Buddhists, there’s no problem. But when it comes to Ahmadiyah, it’s not OK to interfere with Islam,” he said.
Protesters also demanded the government release radical leaders Rizieq Shihab and Munarman of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), who were arrested after stick-wielding FPI members attacked a rally promoting tolerance on June 1.
Mounting motorbikes, vans and trucks, the protesters chanted “Islam United! Disband Ahmadiyah!” and honked horns in a convoy from the palace to police headquarters, where Shihab and Munarman are being held.
Speaking separately to religious teachers outside the capital, Yudhoyono appealed to clerics to resist violent interpretations of Islam.
“Islam is peace, shelter, justice and love. Islam is far from violence and conflict,” the president said.
Liberals have condemned the ministerial decree as an affront to religious freedom, while radicals argue it did not go far enough to end the sect’s “blasphemy.”
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