Indonesian President Asked to be Independent of Islamic Civil Organizations
Monday, 21 April, 2008 | 18:08 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Denpasar: The Ahmadiyah Islamic sect (JAI) has asked President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to not follow the request of some Islamic civil organizations to ban Ahmadiyah.

JAI said this request was aimed at dividing Indonesia by using religion as their excuse.

This statement was made by JAI spokesperson Syamsir Ali, accompanied by JAI general secretary Ahmad Supardi, Sunday (20/04) in Denpasar.

“This is not our agenda for JAI national meeting but the recent situation has forced us to make this statement,” he said.


Syamsir refused to mention the names of resistant Islamic organizations.

“You must know yourself,” he said.

According to Syamsir, JAI deserves to be allowed to continue because of the part it played in Indonesia’s independence from colonialism in 1949 through Isa Muhammad.

Syamsir quoted a statement of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, from his book “Under the revolutionary flag,” saying that he was enlightened by Ahmadiyah.

JAI asked the Coordination Board for the Monitoring of Non-Institutionalized Religious Groups (Bakorpakem) to re-review their recommendation to ban Ahmadiyah, especially when the decision was one-sided only and did not involve an independent observer.

“This is because they concluded we replaced Al Quran with Tadzkirah, and that's wrong,” he said.

According to Syamsir, this defamed Ahmadiyah and he regrets that it had been done by a government institution.

They plan to go to court at a national or an international level.
“We want to maintain our rights to do what we believe,” said Syamsir.

JAI said that they would not agree if the government decided to ban their organization.

“The Islamic religion is not given by government but by our faith,” said Syamsir.

JAI said that the decision of the Indonesian Ulamas’ Council (MUI) to ban Ahmadiyah was not proportional.

The decision has ignited violence among communities as has been concluded by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

Unfortunately Bakorpakem also decided to ban Ahmadiyah.

“We still have 200 Ahmadiyah members in West Nusa Tenggara in refugee camp and this problem needs to be solved,” said Syamsir.

Rofiqi Hassan