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This Article is From Feb 09, 2011

1,500-strong mob kills 3 in sectarian violence

Banten, Indonesia: About 1,500 people stormed a house over the weekend to stop 20 Ahmadiyah followers from worshipping. The mob killed three men and badly wounded six others, while destroying the house and setting several cars and bikes on fire.

Indonesia's president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered an investigation into the attack on members of the minority Muslim sect.

Human rights Watch had obtained this video and circulated it widely in national and international media. The identity of the person who shot this video is being protected by the human rights group.

The most disturbing clip, showed assailants repeatedly pounding two victims - who had been stripped naked and appeared to be dead - with heavy sticks.

A policeman came to the scene but his screams of "stop" were drowned out by the religious chants of the 1500-strong crowd.

Indonesia has the world's most populous Muslim nation. It has a reputation for religious tolerance. But small hard-line factions have been growing increasingly aggressive in recent years. The government has been accused of caving in the demands of the hardliners.

"Over the past ten years anyone who attack the Ahmadiyah, they are not tried, they are not sentenced, the government seems like closing their eyes towards this perpetrators. So we want the decree to be revoked and the perpetrators to be investigated," said Andreas Harsono, from Indonesian Human Rights Watch.

Indonesia's National Police has questioned 12 people and two suspects are under investigation.

The Ahmadiyah are considered deviant by many Muslims and are banned in many Islamic countries because they believe that Muhammad was not the final prophet.
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