“We could not do anything else. We moved them out of the school because of the demands of the local people. For the sake of the security and peace of the Sukadana village, especially in this school, we submitted to the local people’s request by moving them.”
Source/Credit: The Jakarta Globe
By Camelia Pasandaran | July 26, 2013
Two Ahmadiyah teachers and a school attendant have left a state elementary school in Cianjur following pressure from local residents.
“There have been threats from local people since last year,” Indonesian Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI) spokesman told the Jakarta Globe on Friday. “They threatened to take the law into their own hands if the headmaster refused to move them. They’ve moved to different schools but still remain in Campaka subdistricts.”
Firdaus said the names of the teachers and the school attendant would not be revealed out of fears for their security.
Ten Ahmadi students have also decided to move to other schools as a direct result of the teachers’ departure.
“These students joined the school in Sukadana village because they felt protected with the Ahmadiyah teachers there,” Firdaus said. “But after news of their departure spread, the students felt unsafe at the school.”
The new school is around two kilometers away.
“They have decided to move to Cibeber because local people there are not as strongly opposed to Ahmadiyah,” Firdaus said.
Firdaus said discrimination against Ahmadiyah students and teachers in Cianjur has been going on since 2005.
“Many teachers have been moved to other schools due to the same problem,” he said. “One of the biggest cases happened last year when eight teachers in a state elementary school in Cisalada, Bogor, were moved because of their religious beliefs. There has been a systematic effort to oust Ahmadiyah people.”
The headmaster of the school, Sunarya, said, as quoted by Tempo, that he decided to move the teachers and the school attendant to prevent public anger at maintaining them as employees.
“We could not do anything else,” he said on Thursday. “We moved them out of the school because of the demands of the local people. For the sake of the security and peace of the Sukadana village, especially in this school, we submitted to the local people’s request by moving them.”
The head of the Campaka subdistrict education agency, Deden Wahyudin, told Tempo on Thursday that he was not involved in the case.
“I don’t know the details, I’m a new person here,” he said.
Ibnu Hamad, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education and Culture, told the Jakarta Globe on Friday that the ministry was powerless when it came to problems at the regional level.
“It is administratively the authority of the principal and the head of the education agency,” Ibnu said. “I hate to say this again, but this is regional autonomy. The policy or decision of an education agency head is related to the policy of local leaders.”
Ibnu said that the ministry could only advise schools and local education agencies, but had no capacity to take action against them.
“We have suggested that they should not discriminate,” Ibnu said.
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