And this is why, from the Rantburg blog: "Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has called for the ban of an "infidel" Islamic sect as debate raged in the world's most populous Muslim country over religious freedom and tolerance." ""Ahmadiyah is an infidel organisation using the name of Islam, which aims to disrupt Islam,'' he told a press conference called to urge the government to act on the recommendation of an inter-departmental team to outlaw the sect." "We urge the Indonesian government to immediately and officially ban and dissolve Ahmadiyah. We warn the government that any delay to do so will potentially create horizontal conflicts,'' he said. He explained that by "horizontal conflicts'' he meant sectarian violence between mainstream Indonesian Muslims and Ahmadis, who number only about 200,000 in Indonesia. Without a ban, people might take matters into their own hands, he said, a warning made all the more resonant after a mob attacked and razed an Ahmadiyah mosque last week.
Representatives of the Ahmadiyah sect as well as Muslims and Christians gathered to urge the government to resist pressure from Islamic hardliners to ban the sect: "We are here to show to Indonesia, to the world, that Indonesians love peace. To show that there are more Indonesians who love peace than those who don't."
Rico says he never knows whether to laugh or cry at stuff like this, but if there was ever an argument against tolerating religion, this is it...
06 May 2008
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