Source/Credit: Antara News
By Priyambodo RH | March 6 2011
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Cabinet Secretary Dipo Alam has warned certain religious leaders of not using the Ahmadiyah sect as a wild card for politicizing the country`s current situation.
"Don`t politicize and worsen the current situation (by using the problem of Ahmadiyah religious sect) because it can potentially create communal conflicts," he told newsmen here Sunday.
Commenting on the call of Muhammadiyah`s leader, Din Syamsuddin, for the government to ban the Ahmadiyah sect, he said religious leaders need to help maintain peace and tolerance in the society.
Those religious leaders should not instigate tensions that could harm the spirit of tolerance among religious followers, he said.
Asked about Din Syamsuddin`s call for the central government to show its stance on a number of provincial and district governments` policies on banning the teachings of Ahmadiyah sect, Dipo Alam said that call was mistakenly addressed to the central government.
He argued that the central government had earlier issued an inter-ministerial decree in response to the Ahmadiyah question.
All elements in the society should consistently implement what the inter-ministerial decree had stipulated in handling the Ahmadiyah problem, he said.
In halting tensions between the backers and opponents of the Ahmadiyah sect in the society, Dipo Alam said the regional governments were responsible for that.
"They (regional governments) do know their areas and they are responsible for the harmonious lives of their people," he said.
Muhammadiyah leader Din Syamsuddin said earlier that the central government should be able to show its firm stance on responding to the Ahmadiyah problem in Indonesia.
"The government should be able to take firm actions, instead of being hesitant. With its firm stance, it can prevent certain groups of people from taking their own ways of handling the Ahmadiyah problem," he said.
About Muhammmadiyah`s official stance on the Ahmadiyah problem, Din Syamsuddin had confirmed on February 21 that his organization would not involve in any movement supporting the dissolution of that deviant sect.
Instead, Muhammadiyah, Indonesia`s second biggest Islamic organization after Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), would do its best to prevent Muslims from being misled by Ahmadiyah followers, he said.
"It is the state`s power to take stern action by referring to our Constitution because the existence of a group in society is the state`s business," he said.
Din Syamsuddin said Muhammadiyah`s stance on this deviant sect had never changed since the issuance of a "fatwa" in 1933.
According to the "fatwa" that Muhammadiyah issued in 1933 or much earlier than those of Rabithan Alam Islami in 1979 and Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) in 2005, Ahmadiyah was "misleading", he said.
In response to the recent incident of sectarian violence in Banten province, he said the government tended to submit that to the people rather than take firm legal action.
Despite the fact that the government had a reason for not intervening into its people`s religious problems, it should take stern actions against those involving in violence, he said.
Read original post here: Religious leaders warned of not politicizing Ahmadiyah
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