Attacks on Christians and Ahmadiyya in Indonesia sharply on the rise

The freedom of religion in Indonesia is acutely at risk, warns the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). "In 2010 the number of attacks on Christians quadrupled," said Ulrich Delius of the STP's Asia section on Wednesday in Göttingen. "There were 75 anti-Christian actions reported, 43 of them attacks on churches or arbitrary closings of places of worship." The trend is apparently continuing. In February 2011 on the island of Java, three churches were burnt down after a Christian was sentenced to five years in prison for alleged blasphemy. Demonstrators demanded the death sentence.

The situation of Ahmadiyya Muslims is even more dramatic. They are forbidden to practice their religion, their mosques are closed, and the people are threatened, displaced or forced to convert to Sunni Islam. "The Ahmadiyya suffer not only from the violence of radical Muslims, but also from the arbitrary exercise of state power. Security forces systematically refuse to protect them," said Delius.

Since 2007 more than 360 attacks on Ahmadiyya have been reported in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world. Acts of violence were even committed during the "Peaceful Coexistence of Religions Week" in February 2011. On February 6, three Ahmadiyya in Cikeusik in the western part of Java were murdered during prayers, while the police looked on. Nor did police step in when stones were thrown at the homes of Ahmadiyya in the village of Ciarutun Udik on 11 March 2011. A few hours later, in fact, the Ahmadiyya were rounded up by police and warned not to practice their religion any more. In the same month, Ahmadiyya were forbidden to practice their religion in 11 other administrative districts. Just three years earlier, a similar decree was passed by the Indonesian government.

On 13 March 2011, hundreds of Ahmadiyyan books were publicly burned in West Java. In the three days that followed, at least 31 members of the minority were forced, under massive pressure from police and military, to publicly denounce their faith. They were made to sign statements saying that they had converted voluntarily.

Since 2003, more than 150 Christians and Ahmadiyya have been imprisoned for violation of the blasphemy law. Human rights organizations filed a suit with the Supreme Court of Indonesia in 2010 in an unsuccessful attempt to have the law repealed. This law makes it easy for Muslims to accuse people of other religions of blasphemy, which is heavily punished.

Of the 240 million inhabitants of Indonesia, 88 percent are Muslims, while around 400,000 are Ahmadiyya. Because the Ahmadiyya believe that Mohamed was not the last prophet, Sunnis see them as a non-Muslim sect. Christians make up 8 percent of the population.