The Bekasi city government locked down the Al-Misbah mosque, a place of worship for Ahmadiyah Muslims, on Friday in Bekasi, West Java.

According to Sudiana, the head of the legal department of the Bekasi city administration, there had been several protests from the general public about the Ahmadiyah activities being held in the mosque, as reported by tempo.co.

Sudiana added that the government responded by deploying several personnel from the Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) to lock the mosque.

According to Sudiana, this was the government's way of enforcing several regulations that stipulate that Ahmadiyah activities in the mosque are prohibited. This was further emphasized by the fact that the Bandung State Administrative Court had approved their move to lock the mosque.

Ahmadiyah spokesman Deden Sujana said that the Ahmadiyah Muslims had been forced to jump over the fence to get in and out of the mosque.

"Hundreds of Ahmadiyah Muslims are having to struggle just to enter the mosque ," he said.

At the start of the year, the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) said that human rights abuses may rise in 2014, especially against minority groups because there were no regulations that protected them. (fss)

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