Govt told to deal with religious sects wisely
Govt told to deal with religious sects wisely
Hera Diani and Slamet Susanto
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta/Yogyakarta
Heretical, schmeretical! We have been hearing a lot of such
accusations directed lately against, for instance, the imam who
led Islamic ritual prayers in the Indonesian language, or against
the Ahmadiyah congregation.
And now, the finger has been pointed at followers of Mahdi, a
religious sect leader living near Palu, Central Sulawesi, who has
allegedly asked his followers not to practice some of the tenants
of Islam or Christianity.
Din Syamsuddin, chairman of the nation's second largest Muslim
organization Muhammadiyah, quickly branded the Mahdi sect
"blasphemous and misleading", and urged the government to
supervise and to assist the sect followers.
They are people with low educational backgrounds, live in an
isolated mountainous area and are financially repressed, he said,
presumably as a way of explanation for their chosen beliefs.
He also called on a group calling itself the team of religious
faith monitoring (PAKEM) to improve their work.
"Indonesia has a vast area with a diverse population. It
creates a very wide access for any religious faith. We have to be
very wise in taking care of it," Din, also deputy chairman of the
Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), said in Yogyakarta on Friday.
He did, however, say that he regretted the deadly clash
between police and Mahdi's followers on Wednesday, in which five
people were killed -- three officers and two sect members.
The clash occurred as 16 police officers went to the
mountainous Gawalise area outside of Palu city to try to question
Mahdi and they met strong resistance from his followers.
Reports about several officers being held hostage prompted
Central Sulawesi Police to launch a large operation against the
group, with over 300 heavily armed men assisted by a helicopter.
Three police officers were later found alive with serious
injuries on Thursday, while around 100 sect followers surrendered
to police as the search for Mahdi commenced.
Another Muslim scholar Komaruddin Hidayat said that heretical
stigmatization of slightly different groups should be avoided
because no person or group has the right to judge others as
blasphemous.
"What are the criteria for religious deviation? Because
corruption is also another form of deviance," said the Islamic
studies professor from the Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State
University (UIN).
Religious splinter groups and cults, Komaruddin said, can also
be triggered by poverty, low education and a feeling of not being
accommodated or served by the government.
He said the government should have asked the Mahdi followers
for a dialog first, as it could have prevented the clash.
"The government should have been pro-active and held
discussions with the followers. The government should have
approached them nicely instead of confronting them with a platoon
of police."
Islamic jurisprudence scholar Siti Musdah Mulia accused the
government of violating the Constitution by detaining people it
perceived as religiously heretical.
"As long as any religious group does not commit violence or
force others to follow their precepts, the government should let
them be free. The state should even protect them," said Musdah,
who is secretary-general of the Indonesian Conference for
Religion and Peace (ICRP).
The government, Musdah said, has been taking a discriminatory
stance by only recognizing five religions, while there are so
many other "local" religions spread across the country (and the
world).
"Let people choose their own beliefs, because that is a
personal matter. There are so many problems in this country, like
poverty, that the government should focus on those things to
resolve them instead."