Jakarta - Caving in to pressure from hardline Muslim groups,
the provincial government of South Sumatra banned a minority Islamic
sect branded 'heretical' by the country's top clerics, media reports
said Tuesday.
Acting Governor Mahyudin NS announced Monday that his
administration had decided to prohibit the Ahmadiyah movement in the
province on the grounds that it was 'not compatible with Islamic
teachings.'
'The decision to ban Ahmadiyah is permanent and cannot be reviewed
because it is based on valid regulations,' The Jakarta Post quoted
Mahyudin as saying after a meeting with provincial officials and
representatives from a number of Islamic organizations.
South Sumatra was the second province in Indonesia to outlaw
Ahmadiyah. A similar prohibition was recently imposed by neighbouring
West Sumatra.
Ahmadiyah leaders in South Sumatra said their sect has about 1,000
followers in the province.
Several conservative Muslim organizations demanded the sect's
dissolution ahead of the ban.
The Indonesian government issued a decree in June that ordered the
minority sect's followers to stop spreading its teachings and return
to mainstream Islam or face five years in prison and the disbanding
of the group.
However, hardline groups claimed the decree did not go far enough
and are demanding Ahmadiyah either be dissolved or forced to declare
itself non-Muslim.
Ahmadiyah believers have become the target of attacks and violence
by hardline groups in recent months after an edict by the Indonesian
Ulema Council, the country's highest authority on Islam, which
declared the sect heretical.
Mainstream Muslims reject Ahmadiyah's claim of prophethood of its
founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in India in 1908. Most Muslims
believe Mohammed was the last of the prophets.
With nearly 88 per cent of its 230 million people embracing Islam,
Indonesia is home to the world's largest Muslim population. The
country has a long history of religious tolerance.
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