On February 6, 2011, in Cikeusik, a village in western Java, around 1,500 Islamist militants attacked two dozen members of the Ahmadiyah religious community with stones, sticks, and machetes. The mob shouted, “You are infidels! You are heretics!” As captured on video, local police were present at the scene but many left when the crowd began descending on the Ahmadiyah house. By the time the attack was over, three Ahmadiyah men had been bludgeoned to death.
Ahmad Masihuddin, a 25-year-old Ahmadiyah student, recalled, “They held my hands and cut my belt with a machete. They cut my shirt, pants, and undershirt. I was only in my underwear. They took 2.5 million rupiah (US$270) and my Blackberry [cell phone]. They tried to take off my underwear and cut my penis. I was laying in the fetal position. I tried to protect my face, but my left eye was stabbed. Then I heard them say, ‘He is dead, he is dead.’”