Source & Credit: The Jakarta Post | Headlines
Bt Panca Nugraha, | May 15, 2010
Around 120 Ahmadiyah followers taking shelter at Wisma Transito building took part in the national census and were listed as residents of Mataram city in West Nusa Tenggara, despite many having no valid identification.
Head of the Mataram Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Peter Willem, said Friday the followers of the controversial sect had taken part in the census, which ends May 31.
"We registered them as residents of Mataram since they have lived in the city for the last six months," Peter told The Jakarta Post.
He said the refugees were registered using the regular form which he said, did not mention their status as refugees.
Peter said the BPS did not single out the census pattern and treatment between Ahmadiyah refugees and other residents.
Some 136 families or 157 people of the Ahmadiyah sect, considered heretical by the Indonesian Ulema Council, have been living in the shelter for four years since being evicted from their homes in West Lombok by angry mobs.
Some had left or moved to other provinces but some 33 families of 126 people remain.
When contacted, some refugees said they had all been registered collectively through their coordinator, Syahidin, and a number of others.
"The census officers just asked us our names, ages and genders. We used Wisma Transito as our address," said Zuhaer Majid, one of the refugees who accompanied Syahidin during the census visit.
He said 80 adult male refugees did not have valid ID cards. Their IDs, issued by the West Lombok administration as residents of Ketapang village in Gegerung subdistrict, had all expired.
"We applied to have new ID cards processed but were rejected, based on the fact that it was apparently the authority of the NTB administration to issue them," he said.
He said although they participated in the census, their rights as residents were being ignored.
Without the ID cards, he said it would be impossible for them to access the free healthcare and aid programs for poor students offered by NTB Governor H.M. Zainul Majdi.
"We were not even registered as voters for this year's regional elections in Mataram. This is just nonsense. The BPS notes us as Mataram residents but in fact we are not residents of any region," he said.
Another refugee, Komaruddin, said he did not care if he was registered as a resident of West Lombok or Mataram. "The most important thing for us is a clear status. We need an ID card because it includes our rights as a citizen," he said.
He said he and 11 others had tried to return to their homes in West Lombok but the administration was reluctant to allow them for "security reasons".
"The Ketapang community has received us. They have no problem visiting us in the evenings. Yet, when we tried to get our ID cards the administration refused us."
Read the original post here: Displaced Ahmadiyah joins national census
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