INDONESIA: Ahmadiyah members in Batam are threatened, ill-treated and illegally arrested with the acquiescence of the police 

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding intimidation from the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam, FPI) towards Ahmadiyah in Batam. Short after the religious minority group held its Friday prayer on 27 April 2012, the FPI came to Nagoya building (Ruko Nagoya) where the group members regularly hold its religious activities. The FPI forcibly took the leader and two members of the group to the police where, under threats and intimidations and with the acquiescence of the police, the leader of Ahmadiyah Batam was forced to sign an agreement saying that the Ahmadiyah group will not hold any religious activities in Ruko Nagoya.

CASE NARRATIVE:
Some members of Ahmadiyah in Batam conduct their religious and organisational activities in a three-floor building in Komplek Nagoya Square (Ruko Nagoya) in Batam. On 27 April 2012 at around 1.30pm, the leader of the group, Mubaligh Nasrun, heard that there were noises coming from the first floor. A group of people as appearing to be members of the FPI, a fundamentalist Islamic group got into the building while repeatedly yelling ‘Ahmadiyah is deviant’. The FPI managed to reach the second floor where it met Mubaligh Nasrun, an Ahmadiyah member and asked him ‘who is the leader of the group?’ to which Mubaligh Nasrun replied, ‘I am’. He was later dragged by the FPI to another part of the second floor and was forced to sit on the floor to prevent him running away. Mubaligh Nasrun told the FPI that they should talk about things calmly but instead the group responded by hitting him on his head with a broomstick until the stick was broken. Mubaligh Nasrun was also subject to beatings with bare hands as well as threats. A member of the FPI, for instance, asked him whether Mubaligh Nasrun wanted him to cut the Mubaligh’s throat.

While some of the FPI members were intimidating, threatening Mubaligh Nasrun, some others were taking books, Qurans and pictures of the Fourth Ahmadiyah’s Khalifah. Mubaligh Nasrun and two other members of the Ahmadiyah, Suwandi and Arief, were later forcibly taken to the Barelang District Police Station by the FPI in its car.

In the police station, the three Ahmadiyah members received more intimidation and threats by the FPI who demanded the police to detain Mubaligh Nasrun and the other Ahmadiyah members or to close down Ruko Nagoya where the Ahmadiyah holds its activities. The other option that FPI offered was that Mubaligh Nasrun and other members have to declare that they are no longer Ahmadiyahs. The Deputy Head of the Community Empowerment Unit of Barelang District Police, Kompol Suyanto, was present during the negotiations between the FPI and the Ahmadiyah members at the police station yet he failed to take steps to stop the intimidation directed against Mubaligh Nasrun and his fellow Ahmadis. The Head of Batam Religious Tolerance Forum, a representative of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and the Head of Jamaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia (JAI) in Batam were contacted and asked to come to the police station as well. Due to intimidation and threats directed against the members of the organisation he leads, the Head of JAI in Batam signed an agreement which consented that the Ahmadiyah members to stop conducting any activities in Ruko Nagoya. Mubaligh Nasrun, Suwandi and Arief who were taken forcibly to the police station by the FPI were detained until 5am on the next day. As time of writing, the Ahmadiyah members have not started performing any activities in Ruko Nagoya and have been conducting their religious activities in their own houses.

JAI Batam is still consulting the JAI central office to decide if it will pursue any legal venue in relation to the intimidation and threats directed to it.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Article 14 paragraph (1) point i of the Indonesian Law No. 2 Year 2002 on the Indonesian National Police establishes that one of the police’s main duties is to protect the life, properties, society and the environment from any kind of attacks or disruptions. In discharging such duty, the police are obliged to refrain from any discrimination practice. This obligation is stipulated in the Chief of the Indonesian National Police’s Regulation No. 8 Year 2009 which one of articles read that ‘in accordance with the principle of respect for human rights, every INP member in discharging his/her duties or in the course of their daily lives must protect and respect human rights, or at least … act justly and non-discriminatory.’

However, this obligation is rarely fulfilled by the police when it comes to cases regarding attacks towards the Ahmadiyah communities in Indonesia. A local NGO, Lembaga Studi dan Advokasi Masyarakat (Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy, ELSAM) reported that Ahmadiyah is the most persecuted religious groups in Indonesia. In 2011, 54% of freedom of religion cases in Indonesia is concerning the Ahmadiyah. The full report in English can be downloaded here. Despite this fact, those who committed violence against the Ahmadiyah is hardly punished proportionately. Twelve people who beat three Ahmadiyah members to death last year were only sentenced to less than a year imprisonment. In other cases, the perpetrators got off scot-free.

In Indonesia, the Ahmadiyah is prohibited to disseminate any interpretation and religious activities which are not in accordance with the mainstream Islam’s teachings. This prohibition is stipulated in the 2008 Joint Decree issued by the Minister of Religious Affair, the Attorney General and the Home Minister. Any dissemination of interpretation which is not in accordance with the teachings of mainstream Islam in Indonesia is considered as religious blasphemy, which is criminalised under Law No. 1/PnPs/1965 which was later adopted in Article 156a of the Indonesian Penal Code. The provision carries a maximum punishment of five years imprisonment.

Under the Indonesian Penal Code, what the FPI has committed towards Ahmadiyah members in this case amount to crimes, The intimidation and threats it directed to Mubaligh Nasrun and other Ahmadiyah members in Batam are prohibited under Article 336 of the law which carries maximum five years imprisonment. The act of taking Mubaligh Nasrun, Suwandi and Arief to the police illegally should be considered as abduction which is a crime under Article 328 and is subject to a maximum 12 years imprisonment. The FPI personnel should also be held responsible for properties destruction and theft for taking books, pictures and Quran owned by the Ahmadiyah members.

SUGGESTED ACTION:
Please write to the listed authorities below urging them to ensure the police and other law enforcement officials to provide protection towards the Ahmadiyah in Batam. Please also urge the relevant authorities to repeal any discriminatory laws, policies and practices which jeopardise the rights of minorities.

The AHRC is also writing separately to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, the UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

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