A planned declaration in Bandung to denounce the Shiite community turned into a fiery call for jihad, or holy war, against the much-maligned minority group.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people showed up for the event on Sunday hosted by the Anti-Shia Alliance, a gathering of hard-line Sunni Muslim organizations.<\/p>\n
Ahmad bin Zein Al Kaff, the head of one of those organizations, the Anti-Heresy Front, said that Indonesia must be cleansed of Shiite teaching to prevent sectarian strife between Shiites and Sunnis \u2014 all the while inciting violence against Shiites.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time that we declared jihad against them,\u201d he said in an impassioned speech to the crowd gathered at Bandung\u2019s Al Fajar Mosque.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should not tolerate them any more because we can\u2019t hold any more dialogues with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan, who has made no secret of his distaste for minority religious groups, was expected to attend the declaration but stayed away at the last minute, instead sending his assistant for welfare, Ahmad Hadadi, who expressed support for the alliance\u2019s cause.<\/p>\n
Also in attendance was Ahmad Cholil Ridwan, a leader of the Indonesian Council of Ulema, or MUI, the highest Islamic authority in the country and ostensibly a moderate body.<\/p>\n
Cholil\u2019s message on the day, however, was anything but moderate as he called for a \u201cpurge\u201d of the Shiites.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as we [Islamic parties] are not in power, we will never be able to purge the Shiites,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to strengthen our political base. The ruling coalition must be controlled by Islamic parties.\u201d<\/p>\n
The declaration itself called for \u201cpreventive and anticipative\u201d action to deal with the \u201cShiite threat,\u201d which observers say amounts to unprovoked attacks on Shiite communities in West Java and elsewhere, which continue to be carried out by hard-line groups like the Islamic Defenders Front, or FPI.<\/p>\n
FPI members were present at Sunday\u2019s gathering, dressed in black ski masks and camouflage jackets stencilled with \u201cHeresy Hunters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to the declaration, the West Java chapter of the Association of Jamaah Ahlul Bait Indonesia (IJABI), an umbrella group for Shiite organizations, had requested that the police not allow the gathering, on the grounds that it would incite hatred \u2014 a crime under Indonesian law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police should take the necessary steps because this event will spread hatred and could invoke violence,\u201d said Hesti Rahardja, the IJABI West Java chairwoman.<\/p>\n
However, rather than preventing the gathering, the police deployed dozens of officers to secure the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe respect freedom of expression. But we have to be careful because the presidential election is approaching,\u201d Hesti said.<\/p>\n
Bantarto Bandoro, a defense and security expert at the Indonesian Defense University, said it was precisely because of the upcoming election that the alliance had chosen this moment to call for the eradication of the Shiite faith from Indonesia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey perceive themselves as representing the majority. So they think that if any politician wants to become president, they must listen to their demands,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This was borne out in the message to the crowd from Muhammad Al Khaththath, the secretary general of the Indonesian Ulema and Congregation Forum, or FUUI, which in 2012 issued a call to build \u201canti-Shiite posts\u201d to protect the Sunni faithful.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe presidential election must be used as a momentum,\u201d Al Khaththath said on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will support any candidate who wants to make an MOU to purge the Shiites from Indonesia. If Prabowo [Subianto] is ready to do that. he will become the president,\u201d he added, referring to the candidate from the Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra.<\/p>\n
Bantarto urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to quickly take action to prevent he spread of the hate speech and protect Shiite communities from attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe conflict between Sunni and Shiite, which started in the Middle East, has arrived in Indonesia. We must not let ourselves be consumed by this conflict as we risk our own plurality and our unity as a nation. It will be a long and bloody conflict if we fall into the trap,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A planned declaration in Bandung to denounce the Shiite community turned into a fiery call for jihad, or holy war, against the much-maligned minority group. Thousands of people showed up for the event on Sunday hosted by the Anti-Shia Alliance, a gathering of hard-line Sunni Muslim organizations. Ahmad bin Zein Al Kaff, the head of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[460,162,542,543,173,52,118,163,544],"class_list":["post-8618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news-and-analysis","tag-hatred","tag-headline","tag-indonesia","tag-politicians","tag-sectarianism","tag-shia","tag-sunni","tag-ticker","tag-ulema-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8620,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8618\/revisions\/8620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}