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Ahmadiyah mosque incident leads to calls to protect freedom of worship
More than 5,000 people have signed a Change.org petition to “protect freedom of religious belief and worship in Indonesia,” following the destruction of a mosque belonging to the minority Ahmadiyah community.
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Preacher Maulana Nurhadi displays a photograph that shows him and other Ahmadiyah followers with former Wonosobo regent Abdul Kholiq Arif in Central Java, following an interview with 'The Jakarta Post' on Oct. 20, 2018. Wonosobo is home to Indonesia’s largest population of Ahmadis with around 6,000 people who adhere to the religious movement. (The Jakarta Post/Dyaning Pangestika)
T
he recent attack on a mosque belonging to the minority Ahmadiyah community in Sintang, West Kalimantan, has led to fresh calls to protect the right to worship.
By Wednesday, more than 5,000 people had signed a Change.org petition to “protect freedom of religious belief and worship in Indonesia”, following the ransacking of the mosque that has raised concerns about growing intolerance in the country.
Gerakan Indonesia Kita (We Are Indonesia), the civil society movement that initiated the petition, laid out six demands that included treating the incident as a violation of constitutional rights. “Especially as the Sintang regency administration and the local authorities allowed this incident to occur,” the petition read.
On Sept. 3, a group calling itself Aliansi Umat Islam (AUI) attacked the Miftahul Huda mosque just weeks after it was sealed by the Sintang administration, leaving the building severely damaged and a shed behind it in flames. At the time of the incident, hundreds of security personnel stood by.
The mosque had been sealed since early last month after protests from the AUI, which disagreed with the presence of Ahmadis in that community.
It was the latest attack against one of the country’s most persecuted religious minorities.
Read also: Rights groups condemn attack on Ahmadiyah mosque
