Jakarta - Thousands of Indonesian Muslim hardliners took to
the streets of Jakarta Wednesday to demand the government immediately
outlaw a minority Islamic sect branded 'deviant' by top clerics.
Activists from the Islamic Defenders Front protested against the
Ahmadiyah sect in front of the presidential palace and demanded the
release of their leader Habib Rizieq Shihab from custody.
Rizieq is on trial in the June 1 stick-wielding attack by hundreds
of his followers on a rally for religious tolerance, in which dozens
of people were injured.
The government issued a decree June 9 ordering Ahmadiyah followers
to cease all activities and return to mainstream Islam or face five
years' imprisonment and the disbanding of the group.
But conservative groups criticized the decree as not going far
enough and demanded the government disband the sect, whose leaders
claim to have from 500,000 to 2 million followers in Indonesia.
The Indonesian Ulema Council, the country's highest authority on
Islam, has declared the Ahmadiyah sect heretical for believing its
founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908 in India, is the last
prophet instead of Mohammed, whom mainstream Muslims worldwide
believe was God's final messenger.
Indonesia is the world's most-populous Islamic nation, with nearly
88 per cent of its 225 million people professing to be Muslims. It
also has a long history of religious tolerance, particularly for
Hinduism, Buddhism and traditional animist beliefs.
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