W

hen faced with the option on whether to ban Ahmadiyah, the Jambi provincial administration has chosen not to, while in East Java calls to support bans continue.

Jambi Deputy Governor Fachrori Umar said his administration allowed Ahmadiyah followers to perform religious activities freely across the province.

“We will not follow other regional administration heads who
issued bans on Ahmadiyah activities. They are free,” Fachrori was quoted as saying by Antara in Jambi on Thursday.

The administration is left with the obligation to supervise Ahmadiyah’s activities, he added.

The decision not to issue a bylaw to ban Ahmadiyah was made on the grounds that the province did not have a problem with the matter.

The administration, he said, would follow the central government’s directions and not issue a one-sided policy over fears it would instead incite conflict.

“The supervision we have been giving so far shows a promising result as indicated by the fact
that no rifts have occurred in Jambi. The development of the sect
has also been small as there are no new Ahmadiyah members here,”
he said.

He said supervision would be conducted, among others, through religious preaching.

But instead of providing supervision, a number of other regional administrations said they preferred to issue policies to ban Ahmadiyah in their respective regions.

East Java Governor Soekarwo on Feb. 28 imposed the ban, which was supported both legislative and executive institutions, religious leaders and the Indonesian Ulema Council’s (MUI) provincial branch. The Ahmadiyah community has been banned from spreading their teachings and has been ordered to dismantle the sect’s signs and attributes.

West Java and South Sumatra have also implemented the same policy but Yogyakarta has opted against it.

Separately in Riau, Governor Rusli Zainal said his administration had yet to decide on whether to issue a bylaw for the same purpose considering that the Ahmadiyah community had been in the province for a long time, especially in Pekanbaru, the provincial capital.

He said there were at least three locations in Pekanbaru that had been centers of Ahmadiyah activities in the region.

In Surabaya, thousands of Muslims from 36 mass organizations staged a rally Thursday in
front of the Grahadi building in support of the ban.

Calling itself the United Muslim Community Movement (GUIB), the group urged Governor Soekarwo not to void the 2011 governor decree on the ban.

“The FPI [Islamic Defenders Front] will always guard the decree. Together with GUIB we are
ready to defend the governor should there be someone or some group wanting the cancellation of the decree,” FPI East Java chairman Habib Haidar Al Hamid said in his oratory at the rally.

He added that the FPI was also ready to protect and guarantee the security of the governor both while in his office or at home.

— Wahyoe Boediwardhana
contributed to the reports
from Surabaya