An Indonesian man wounded when Muslim hate criminals attacked members of his minority Islamic sect was sentenced Monday to six months in jail, more than some of the actual attackers who were caught on video.
It is part of a pattern of abuse against followers of the Ahmadiyya sect.
When Dani bin Misra was released from prison last week after serving just three months for smashing in the skull of a member of a Muslim sect, this conservative Indonesian town let out a triumphant cry. “He’s a hero!” Rasna bin Wildan said of the teenage killer.
Muslim savages who hacked, stoned and beat to death three members of a peaceful sect of Islam were given a slap on the wrist in what observers around the world consider to be a miscarriage of justice.
Last February the barbarians attacked followers of Ahmadiyya, a Muslim minority sect.
Muslims extremists have attacked members of an heretical sect, killing three and injuring five others.
The beleaguered Ahmadiyah sect has tried to clarify its beliefs, with the national secretary of Ahmadiyah Indonesia, Zafrullah Pontoh, saying it had never claimed Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as their prophet.
Rather, he was the “Promised Messiah, a savior for Muslims, Christians and Jews.”
Three people were allegedly injured and houses damaged when clashes broke out between an angry mob and members of Islamic sect Jamaah Ahmadiyah in Kuningan regency, West Java, on Thursday.
The Ahmadiyah sect, with 500,000 followers in Indonesia, believes that its founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was the final prophet and not Mohammad, contrary to the central tenet of mainstream Islam, which says Mohammad is the last prophet.
Ahmadi Muslims have been preaching peace since the movement was founded. Now, they say they are trying to get the rest of the world to listen, Religion News Service reports.
They are pushing the Muslims for Peace movement, a public awareness campaign started by the Ahmadi community. The campaign advertises Islam as a peaceful religion, condemns terrorism and advocates for the separation of religion and state and human rights.
However, Ahmadis do not believe that Muhammad was God’s final prophet. Hence many extremist Muslims, who see Ahmadis as heretics, have carried out violent terrorist and harassment campaigns against the movement.
Why are Ahmadis persecuted so ferociously in Pakistan? Because anyone who defends an apostate is themselves an apostate, writes Mohsin Hamid in an opinion piece at Dawn.com.
This is what the persecution of Ahmadis achieves. It allows any Muslim to be declared an apostate. For the logic can be continued endlessly. When an Ahmadi man is wounded in an attack and goes to a hospital for treatment, if the doctor agrees to treat him, she is helping an apostate, and therefore she becomes an apostate and subject to threats. When a policeman is deputed to protect the doctor, since she is an apostate, the policeman is helping an apostate, so he too becomes an apostate. And on and on.
The collective result of this is to silence and impose fear not just on the few per cent of Pakistanis who are Ahmadis, or even on those who are Christians and Hindus, but on all of us. The message is clear. Speaking out against the problem means you are the problem, so you had better be quiet.
More than 80 worshipers of a minority Muslim sect, the Ahmadis, were killed and more than 110 wounded Friday in a coordinated assault by seven well-trained attackers on two mosques in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city, the authorities said.
The target was the Ahmadis, a group of about two million Muslims in Pakistan who are considered heretical by many mainstream Muslims because the Ahmadis believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who founded their movement in 1889, was the messiah foretold by Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.
Gunmen stormed two Pakistani mosques belonging to Ahmadiyya, a minority Muslim sect, in Lahore on Friday, seizing hostages among worshippers, setting off grenades and sparking a bloody shootout with police.
Rights groups say the sect has long been persecuted in Pakistan and has remained an occasional target of sectarian attacks.