Members of the Ahmadiyah sect in Manislor village in Kuningan, West Java, on Monday reported the local administration to the Indonesian Ombudsman and the Home Ministry's Population and Civil Registration Agency (Dukcapil) for allegedly forcing Ahmadis in the village to abandon their faith.
It was the second time for Ahmadiyah followers in the village to file such a report.
Submitting their report with the Ombudsman in Jakarta on Monday, 15 members of Manislor's Ahmadiyah community said the Kuningan regency administration had insisted all Ahmadiyah followers in the village renounce their faith and convert to the "true teaching of Islam" if they wanted the government to issue IDs for them.
Syamsul Alam Agus, an activist from the Satu Keadilan Foundation (YSK), one of the human rights groups assisting Manislor's Ahmadis in their quest for justice, said the lack of administrative documents had hampered their rights to exercise civil rights and access social services.
"Without IDs, they, for example, cannot access BPJS [Healthcare and Social Security Agency] services and their marriages are unregistered. They cannot even go anywhere around the country by plane or train because we need ID to arrange travel by those modes of transportation," Syamsul told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta on Monday.
Ahmadiyah followers from Manislor would also be excluded from participating in the upcoming regional elections, as well as the 2019 legislative and presidential elections, he went on.
In June, the Ombudsman and Dukcapil urged the local administration to issue IDs to the Manislor Ahmadis but around 1,600 Ahmadis in the village have not yet obtained IDs.
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(c) 2017 HRWF