JAKARTA : Followers of a minority Islamic sect slapped with harsh restrictions in Indonesia this week are keeping a "low profile" amid fears of extremist violence, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Ahmadiyah sect spokesman Syamsir Ali said some of the group's followers were praying at home and trying not to attract attention after the government issued a decree ordering them to stop spreading un-Islamic ideas or face prison.

"In some cases (we have advised people) to keep a low profile and worship in their houses," he told reporters.

"There has been no communication with us. The government has given us no detailed information or elaborated anything with us."

Two days after the government issued the decree in response to hardliners' demands for the sect to be outlawed, it was still unclear what it meant for the country's small Ahmadi community and for religious freedom in general.

Senior officials said the sect was entitled to worship in its mosques but could not "spread" its unorthodox belief that there was another prophet after Mohammed.

But religious minority leaders and moderate Muslims said the decree was so ambiguous it opened the door for extremist vigilante groups to step up their campaign of violent intimidation against Ahmadis.

"The grey area born in the wake of the joint ministerial decree is going to keep giving rise to tension. We hope that all sides act wisely. We don't want anarchic actions," the Muslim-oriented daily Republika said in an editorial.

"Punishment has to fall on those who violate the law, both from Ahmadiyah and the general community."

An editorial in The Jakarta Post asked: "Have we really sunk so low? Is the way to influence President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono through the power of the mob and the power of intimidation?"

It said the decree was a symptom of the weakness of the country's first directly elected president less than a year from general and parliamentary polls.

"Can a president who was elected with 62 percent of the vote in 2004 be cowed by a bunch of men in white robes whose claim of representing the people is widely in doubt?" it asked.

"Sooner or later the government has to decide clearly where it stands on the question of freedom of religion."

One foreign diplomat asked whether the decree would lead to the burning of Ahmadi literature in a country that prides itself on a long tradition of religious pluralism and tolerance.

Ahmadiyah mosques have been attacked and worshippers threatened since the country's top Islamic body deemed the sect "deviant" and a government panel recommended it be banned in April.

Its plight is being seen as a test case for religious freedom and the rule of law in the world's most populous Muslim country.

The sect, which came to Indonesia from South Asia in the 1920s, claims only 500,000 members in a country of 234 million people. It believes its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was the final prophet of Islam.

"The case of Ahmadiyah is for me a question of religious freedom in Indonesia," said Franz Magnis, a prominent figure in Indonesia's Catholic community.

"How is it possible that a group that has lived peacefully here for 80 years and obviously didn't stir up any trouble... how is it possible in this state that people say 'kill, kill, kill?' This is against the law."

The deputy chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council, H. Amidhan, defended the top Islamic body's fatwas against Ahmadiyah and praised the decree as a "moderate" response to the issue.

But he appeared confused when asked by journalists whether the state had any right to intervene in the religious beliefs of citizens under the 1945 constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion.

- AFP/ir