Home Affairs Minister Calls for Protection of Ex-Gafatar Members
January 20, 2016 | 9:27 pm
Jakarta. Home Affairs Minister Tjahjo Kumolo has instructed West Kalimantan officials to ensure the safety of a group believed to be former members of the Gafatar minority after an angry mob burned down their village on Tuesday.
Tjahjo told the Ministry's Director General for Politics and General Government to coordinate with the province's governor and intelligence networks to ensure the safety of the the 800 former Gafatar members.
The former members were forced to leave their homes in Moton Panjang, Mempaway district, West Kalimantan, after a mob formed in protests and razed the village. No causalities have been reported.
“The group of the [former] Gafatar members need to be evacuated to their hometowns and the security officers along with the Public Order Agency [Satpol PP] have to keep the safety and peace of the area,” the minister said on Wednesday in Jakarta.
Hometowns of the group are spread across East and West Java and Lampung, South Sumatra.
The community — varying in ages from elderly people to young children — are currently housed at the Tanjunpura military facility and Pesuma Sports and Recreation Center in the West Kalimantan capital Pontianak. Transportation is being arranged to return the families to their hometowns.
“We are doing our best to send them back home as soon as possible,” West Kalimantan Deputy Governor Cristiandy Sanjaya said on Wednesday.
West Kalimantan Governor Cornelis explained the former Gafatar members had made their way to province illegally, not through the standard transmigration channels.
"They are not legal residents here, therefore we are sending them back to where they belong," he said.
Gafatar, or Fajar Nusantara Movement, is believed to be the transformation of another group named Al-Qiyadah al-Islamiyah. Its leader, self-proclaimed prophet Ahmad Moshaddeq was sentenced in 2008 to four years jail for blasphemy.
Suspicions that Moshaddeq may have formed a new group arose after a female doctor and her 6-month-old baby went missing from Yogyakarta on Dec. 30, only to be found almost two weeks later in West Kalimantan where the group is now believed to be based.
Since the discovery, other missing person reports have been attributed to the group.
Indonesia has seen a spate of violence against member of religious minorities, particularly targeting the Ahmadiyah sect and Shiites.
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