Activists from an Indonesian Muslim hardliner group attacked dozens of supporters of a minority sect dubbed heretical by a government panel who rallied in Jakarta on Sunday, leaving several people injured, witnesses and local media reports said. ( dpa )
Carrying sticks, activists from the Islamic Defender Front (FPI) Muslim hardliners group beat supporters of the Ahmadiyah sect outside the presidential palace during a protest rally.
More than 10 supporters of the minority Ahmadiyah sect were injured in the attack, an organizer was quoted as saying by Elshinta private radio.
It was the latest attacks by Muslim militants against individuals, properties, mosques and schools belonging to the minority Ahmadiyah in Indonesia, the world's most-populous Muslim nation.
In early May, hundreds of the Muslim hardliners attacked and set fire to Ahmadiyah mosque in the West Java district of Sukabumi and heavily damaged a school building there.
The string of violence against the Ahmadiyah sect came after a team with officials from two government ministries and the attorney general's office recommended in April that the government ban the sect because its teachings deviate from the central tenets of Islam.
Human rights activists have said the issue raises questions over Indonesia's image as a moderate and tolerant Muslim country which constitutionally guarantees religious freedom, and urged the state to protect the sect's members.
Mainstream Muslims reject Ahmadiyya's claim of the prophethood of its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908 in India. Most Muslims believe that Mohammad is the last of the prophets.
Some of the sect's other teachings are also considered deviant by both Sunni and Shia, the two major branches of Islam, and some Muslim countries do not accept the Ahmadiyyas as Muslim.
The Indonesian Ulema Council, the country's highest authority on Islam, has declared the Ahmadiyah sect heretical.
Indonesia is home to the world's most populous Islamic nation with nearly 88 per cent of its 225 million people being Muslims. The country has a long history of religious tolerance.
However, in recent years a hard-line fringe has grown louder and the government - which relies on the support of Islamic parties in parliament - has been accused of cowing to it.