Jakarta (AsiaNews) - With the
complicity of the central government, an Islamic Indonesian cleric forcibly
closed an Ahmadis mosque in Cilimus, a village about two kilometers from one of
the major Ahmadis centers of Cianjur Regency (West Java). This
is the fourth place of worship of the Muslim minority to be forcibly shut down
in the area since last April.
The
material author of the gesture is known as "guru Yiyi". He is well known in the area because of his
long collaboration with the Bakorpakem, a body that monitors religious
activities and is part of the Office of the Attorney General and National
Intelligence Service. When
the cleric arrived at the mosque to order its closure, the police did not
intervene despite the protests of the Ahmadis faithful.
The
Muslim minority is considered heretical because it does not recognize Muhammad
as the last prophet and is often the victim
of persecution and abuse from orthodox Sunni Islam. For
a long time the presence of Ahmadis has been a source of inter-islamic
intolerance in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. The
climate of hostility became even more acute after the declaration of the most
important Islamic groups in the country - including the Islamic Defenders Front
(FPI) and the National Council of Ulema (MUI) - that the community is not part
of the "original "and
pure faith.
Just
the Regency of Cianjur has been the scene of violent clashes between Ahmadis
and some Islamic fundamentalists, who in 2005 set fire to 4 villages in the
area. In
recent years, moreover, the Islamists have launched a campaign to boycott the
products and services offered by the Ahmadis, trying to force them to leave the
area.