T

he Ahmadiyah Indonesia Congregation (JAI) has called on the mass media to be balanced in its reporting of news related to minority groups in Indonesia.

Leader (Amir Nasional) of Ahmadiyah Indonesia Abdul Basit said some media outlet usually did not provide the complete story behind cases involving minority groups and seemed to forget to ask them to voice their opinion.

“Most of the time, media only quotes officers from government institutions [...] when they should also ask the minority groups,” Abdul said at JAI’s office.

Zuhairi Misrawi from the country’s largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) said that some media outlets were still sensitive about the word Ahmadiyah. “I once wrote an opinion piece about Ahmadiyah based on my own experience and sent it to a local print media group. The group published my opinion but they deleted almost all ‘Ahmadiyah’ references in it. That doesn’t make sense at all,” Zuhari said.