Home Worldwide Indonesia February, 2011 FPI Vows to Disband Ahmadiyah…

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Makassar. The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) is threatening to disband Ahmadiyah, regardless of the risks, if the government does not take action against the Islamic sect.

Speaking in Makassar, South Sulawesi, on Friday, FPI leader Habib Riziq said that Ahmadiyah was deviant and “must be disbanded.”

“On that basis, the government must know which one is freedom of religion and which one is desecration [of religion]. In the name of Allah, I swear that until the last drop of my blood, whatever the risks, Ahmadiyah must not exist in Indonesia,” Riziq said while giving a sermon before Friday prayers at the Al Markaz Al Islam mosque.

Riziq said he was not afraid of anyone who supported or defended Ahmadiyah, be it the police, the military, nongovernmental organizations, ministers or the government.

“We are not afraid of them,” he claimed.

Riziq said Ahmadiyah was a form of desecration of Islam and the government had to know the difference.

Ahmadiyah, he said, did not admit that Muhammad was the last prophet. That alone was enough reason to disband the sect and guide its followers to return to Islam, he said.

“If fake money is destroyed, if fake policemen are arrested, why shouldn’t we destroy fake religion?” he said, adding that Islam accepted plurality but not pluralism.

“Ahmadiyah copied Islam and changed its teachings. Don’t forget that no matter how similar, Ahmadiyah is not Islam just like apes and men are similar but do not push the similarities too far,” he said.

Lawmakers said the FPI’s actions were an outrageous abuse of the principle of freedom of expression.

Democratic Party Secretary General Ramadhan Pohan said the government recognized freedom of expression and political freedom as mandated by the Constitution.

“But the principle has been excessively used by FPI, which tends to abuse it,” he said.

He called for security agencies to defend the president, stressing they should not left the FPI injure the president’s dignity.

National Mandate Party (PAN) official Teguh Juwarno said the FPI’s claim that it would oust the president was unacceptable.

“It’s true that the president has many weaknesses, but ousting him is not a solution,” he said.

He said a culture of violence was flourishing because the government had failed to ensure fair enforcement of the law.

Most people believed the government only strictly enforced the law when it dealt with the weak and poor.

It had sparked beliefs in many people’s minds that they must seek there own justice together in numbers, Teguh said.

“That’s what happened with the FPI. So we need firmness from the government to stand up for law enforcement. So, the people know what can or cannot be donet, including with FPI and Ahmadiyah matters,” Teguh said.

Priyo Budi Santoso, a senior official from the Golkar Party, said any threat against the president breached the Constitution.

Such threats were a threat to democracy at the same time, he said.

“If we followed such threats, then the political cost and the social cost are too expensive for us. We don’t agree with it,” Priyo said.

But a senior official from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Andreas Pareira, said the government should not take the FPI’s threat seriously.

Rather than taking excessive actions against it, Andreas said it was better for the government to ensure security agencies carried out their responsibilities fairly and firmly.

“FPI is not that big to get so much attention. Just do the legal enforcement,” Andreas said.

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