Jakarta, Indonesia - Indonesia’s president on Sunday stressed the right to religious freedom in the world’s largest Muslim-populated nation and called on citizens to help prevent violence against any faith. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, according to his spokesman Andi Mallarangeng, called on all ranks of the government and the community “to prevent violence agains religious worship activities.” There have been recent attacks on the premises of the Ahmadiyah Islamic sect which is deemed by the country’s highest Islamic authority, the Indonesian Council of Ulemas, to be a deviant sect.
There have also been reports of forcible closures of several Christian places of worship in the staunchly Muslim provinces of West Java and Banten in recent months. “The state guarantees the freedom of its citizens to practise their own religion and also guarantees that they can conduct their worship,” the spokesman quoted the president as saying.