NU LEADERSHIP INSTRUCTS MEMBERS TO STAY OUT OF FPI-AKKBB CONFLICT

Jakarta, June 7 (ANTARA) - The top leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia's largest Muslim mass oragnization, has instructed the organization's rank and file not to get involved in the conflict between the Islam Defenders' Front (FPI) and the National Alliance for Freedom of Religion and Faith (AKKBB). The instruction was issued "because it (the conflict) has nothing to do with NU as an organization," the NU's central executive board (PBNU) said in a statement on Friday. NU members were requested "to be alert to and not to be provoked by those who try to make NU members clash with FPI masses and other people." The NU leadership's directive comes almost a week after NU-affiliated organizations in a number of regions, including youth organizations Anshor and Garda Bangsa, staged anti-FPI rallies and other actions in reaction to the FPI attack on a peaceful rally of AKKBB activists at the Monas (National Monument) Square in Jakarta last June 1. Scores of AKKBB people were injured in the assault. Some FPI members later tried to justify the attack by saying the AKKBB was defending Ahmadiyah, a sect mainstream Muslim organizations consider to be heretical and want to see banned by the government. In its instruction, PBNU said the acts of violence committed by FPI members against AKKBB should be left to the authorities to settle in accordance with the existing laws. Noting that there were NU members who had a differemt view on Ahmadiyah, the PBNU said NU ulema had already made it clear that Ahmadiyah was a deviant sect. In NU's view, the Ahmadiyah issue had nothing to do with the freedom to embrace a religion or faith but was a case of defilement of Islam, the PBNU said in its instruction signed by the chairman of its law-making body, Prof Dr KH Chotibul Umam, Associate Chairman Ahmad Bagdja and Secretary General Dr H Endang Turmudi MA.