An ugly incident of orchestrated violence against a religious minority has raised concerns about rising intolerance and the government's weakening commitment to pluralism. On February 6th three members of the Ahmadiyah, an unorthodox Islamic sect, were beaten to death by a mob orchestrated by a fundamentalist vigilante group, the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), in Banten province, near the capital, Jakarta. Videos of the attack, aired widely on local and international news channels, show police standing aside as the mob attacked a house where Ahmadiyah members had gathered, killing the three men. On February 5th local Ahmadiyah followers, including the owner of the house, had sought police protection as a result of threats to attack them. But despite the fact that busloads of youths had assembled at the scene the following day, the authorities had declined to act.

The Ahmadiyah sect originated in India; its followers believe that its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was Islam's last prophet. This contradicts orthodox teachings, which hold that Mohammed was the faith's last prophet. Ahmadiyah followers were denounced as apostates in a fatwa issued by the Religious Scholars' Council of Indonesia (MUI, the country's top clerical body) in 2005, and since then its adherents-of whom there are thought to be around 500,000 in Indonesia-have been persecuted by Islamic vigilante groups such as the FPI. The government has aligned itself to a degree with the MUI and the vigilantes, passing a joint ministerial decree in 2008 that prohibited the Ahmadiyah from worshipping in public and proselytising, and subsequently failing to protect Ahmadiyah members from frequent attacks.

However, the violence in February has taken such intimidation to new heights, and its wide and graphic dissemination has been met with an outpouring of public disgust and anger directed at the government for failing to protect minority religions. Mr Yudhoyono first commented on February 7th, when he expressed his regret at the incident but also called on the Ahmadiyah to respect the decree restricting their religious freedom. Two days later, in response to a growing backlash, he called for organisations that advocate violence to be disbanded. In retaliation, the FPI threatened to overthrow Mr Yudhoyono if he moved to disband any Islamic mass organisations, and on February 19th it staged a demonstration outside the presidential palace in Jakarta, calling on the president to disband the Ahmadiyah or resign.

Mr Yudhoyono has yet to respond to these taunts and threats, unlike previous occasions on which his authority has been challenged openly, and it remains unclear whether he will have the courage to curb the FPI and other, similar organisations. Past attempts to rein in the FPI have failed, with light sentences handed to leaders of the group found guilty of inciting violence and hatred. The FPI's leader, Rizieq Shihab, received an 18-month prison term after being found guilty of orchestrating an attack against a group advocating religious tolerance in 2008, while a local leader, Murhali Barda, who incited an attack in Bekasi last year in which Christians were beaten and stabbed, was sentenced to only five and a half months in jail for unpleasant conduct. This time around the cabinet is divided on the issue. The religious affairs minister, Suryadharma Ali, and the justice and human rights minister, Patrialis Akbar, are broadly sympathetic to the views of the FPI. In the aftermath of the attack Mr Ali defended the 2008 joint decree and denied that it had encouraged discrimination against the Ahmadiyah, while Mr Akbar refused to accept that the murders constituted a violation of human rights. The police have also been ineffective so far in pursuing the FPI. The national police chief, General Timur Pradopo, was reported as having been a founding member of the FPI in 1998 and said when he was appointed in 2010 that the vigilante group could play a role in maintaining security.

Internal politics within the coalition go a long way towards explaining the recent deterioration in religious tolerance in Indonesia. A local group that monitors religious tolerance, the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, recorded 75 violations of religious freedom in the country in 2010, up from 17 in 2008 and 18 in 2009. In February 2011 a further two cases were noted, in Temanggung, Central Java, where Muslim extremists perpetrated an arson attack on two churches, and at an Islamic boarding school in Pasuruan, East Java, which was pelted with stones because its clerics were suspected of being sympathetic to Shiite views rather than the Sunni doctrines that prevail in Indonesia.