Govt looking over Sampang

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto said that the Religious Affairs Ministry should step forward in handling interreligious conflicts, including the latest incident in Sampang, Madura, where the local Sunni population attacked property owned by their Shiite neighbors in the area.

Djoko said that the Religious Affairs Ministry was best equipped to deal with such conflict and Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali had prepared a number of solutions to deal with the problem.

“Religious leaders should take the role of raising awareness in preventing conflicts from developing into violence,” Djoko said on Friday.

He also said that police would guarantee the safety of refugees if they intended to return to their homes, but local authorities were now focusing on bringing calm to the area.

Djoko reiterated the government’s commitment in protecting freedom of faith in the country.

East Java Governor Soekarwo also made similar statements on Friday, saying that Shiite Muslims were free to practice their faith. “Until now the Indonesian Ulema Council [MUI] had not issued any edict saying that Shiite Muslims were considered heretic. We therefore cannot make decisions to disband the sect, similar to Ahmadiyah,” Soekarwo said.

He also said that the local government never issued an order for the Shiite community to evacuate and it was merely an order for them to leave their homes until the security situation improved.

“This is like when flooding occurred. We asked them to evacuate to higher ground for a while,” he said.

A property compound belonging to the Shiite community in Sampang, Madura, was allegedly burned down on Thursday by Sunni followers, the majority Islamic group in the country

The incident took place at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday in the Karang Gayam village in Sampang, Madura. No fatalities were reported, but Shiite Muslims in the area were forced to leave their homes and take refuge in a nearby shelter.

More than 300 members of the Shiite community hid within an indoor tennis court in downtown Sampang, more than 20 kilometers from their homes. A large number of the displaced persons are children.

Sampang Police said that so far no suspects had been named in the incident and 15 people were questioned, but only as witnesses.

The National Police said that any criminal investigation of the violence would be handled by the local police.

National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution told The Jakarta Post over the telephone that the Sampang Police had begun investigating the case.

“We [the Police] are asking local residents to hand over the perpetrators who burned down the compound,” Saud said.

Reports say that the incident began with a brawl between a local leader named Rois and his brother Tajul. The two were evidently Sunni followers, but then as the family conflict escalated, Tajul turned to the Shiite ideology.

Saud confirmed that the conflict was triggered by personal matters that later eventually involved the local community, “The two were both influential public figures, so they could easily gather their own groups of supporters,” he said.

One respected figure in the country’s Shiite community, Jalaludin Rakhmat, said that what matters most now is the safety of Shiite followers in the area.

“The most important thing is evacuating members of the Shiite community to protect their faith and security,” he told the Post on Friday.

Jalaludin also called on the government to keep its promise in protecting minority groups in the country. “We want the local government to handle this case and we hope that they will be resolute in their action as promised,” he said.

The same compound was also attacked in 2006.