I'm sorry, I can't help writing on this sensitive issue. I write mostly about what I'm engrossed with, and now, due to an intensive exposure over this faith stuff recently, I'm now fully engrossed with this religious or cultural discrimination issues.

In my country Indonesia, over 80 percent or maybe even nearly 90 percent of the population is Muslim, or at least that's what is stated in their ID cards.

However, outsiders have to know the fact that most of the Indonesian Muslims are the so-called moderate, if not secularist Muslims.
We are not by all means resembling our brothers and sisters in the so-called Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, whose snapshots in the lives of especially Muslim women have often been exposed in (mostly Western) media, and then used as basics for stereotyping and ill-judging, if not condemnation against us Muslims in addition to the stupid terrorism acts.

But, here, I will focus not on those three. Instead I will make discrimination, which is an impact of the stereotyping, etc, a central issue of this posting.

Back to Indonesia, the country to which I was born and raised, and now still lives in; as I've said earlier most of Muslims here are of moderate, if not secularist types.
But, outside this dominant majority, there are smaller groups with different extents of attachment to Islam.
Polarizing from the moderate people, there are these so-called fundamentalist and extremely liberal Muslims.
Even these groups can be parted into many smaller groups with their wide varieties in ideas, which leads to the point that you can't generalize them all.
I reckon you can see here that in my country, Islam is very colorful.
But, we can still say that this group or that group is just this or that color of Islam, and not of different religion because basically we still have something in common, and that is what we call aqeeda, which in English is similar to creed. This same aqeeda means that either Sunni or Shia people are Muslims anyway.

That's why when the Ahmadiyah group, which says that Muhammad saw is not the last prophet (which is one of Islamic creeds) claims they also Muslims, most of us here in Indonesia cannot accept that, though they show they disapproval in different extents. Some only disagree but say nothing, while some staged rallies in rejection and demand that the government ban the group. A few others, attacked the Ahmadiyah followers with violence.

Came then these defenders of Ahmadiyah, with the most vocal are of course those from the liberalist groups. Regardless the fact that Ahmadiyah has different faith but claims to be in the same faith with us, these liberalist groups have been voicing strong objections to the government's finally banning of Ahmadiyah (the banning is on the propagation and not on private prayers).

And these liberalist groups, fortunately, mostly control the local medias.

I will honestly admit that I'm not on the Ahmadiyah's side, but I'm also not on the side of those aggressively demanding for their banning. I believe that these belief matters cannot be settled with violence nor punishment, but rather with objective, intellectual discussions.

I'm therefore against whatever subjective and biased stance, either that in support to them or in opposition.

The liberalist-controlled medias, unfortunately, I think are so biased that I can't help feeling angry for their reports. If you read them, you'll see that they never try to cover both sides in their reporting on these matters. Their judging is so ill, so unfair.

I agree that the group that has stupidly attacked Ahmadiyah mosques and followers is guilty. But that doesn't mean that they're wrong in anything.
And the Ahmadiyah followers, I agree that they're victims in this violence attack against them, but it doesn't mean they're right in anything. Hence I believe that news reporting should however be based merely on on-going facts, however difficult it was to exclude the writers' stance in them.

But, these biased medias don't have the same principle as I do. Their siding with Ahmadiyah means that whatever they do, the Ahmadiyah followers will always be on the right track. They're always victimized angels that should be defended forever. The attackers, meanwhile, will always be the culprit and hence the medias' eternal enemies, those that deserve bad stigma and sterotyping in each stories that tell about them.

In regards to Indonesia's independence day in 17 August, one of these medias have planned to make in-depth, featurized stories of those who have been suffering from either religious, political or social persecutions. And the victimized, marginalized, discriminated groups in this media's eyes are, of course, always no other than the AHmadiyah followers, the ex-PKI (Indonesian Communist PArty) members and their chidren and grandchildren, the Chinese ethnics, the homosexual and trans-gender group, and so on...

They've been so unfair. If they're fair, all discriminated people, including women like me, who due to our appearances have difficulties to find jobs, face discriminations in offices, receive sanctions in schools, and stared with ill-judging look, should have been given place in the media, too, with reports of the discrimination we've been facing.

But, different from the Ahmadiya followers, to ex-PKI members' relatives, the Chinese ethnics, the gay community and so on, we're on the opposite side from these liberalist medias. We're the so-called fundamentalists, though we're not by all means among those who went too far with their violence attacks to Ahmadiyah members.
We're called fundamentalists simply because we want to adhere to Islamic values, which they despise, which they hate so deeply.

I think it's clear that the medias are so biased. They pledge their allegiance to those who can help them reach dreams of making this Majority-muslim country a liberalized, free-to-do-anything nation;
and certainly will never make us the "fundamentalists" (really, I hate this stigmatization) "the good character" of their stories, moreover "victims" of some oppressive authorities.