Jakarta – Human rights activists urged Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday to sack his religious affairs minister and to lift a ban on a minority Islamic group practising in public.

Some provincial administrations in the world's most populous Muslim country have issued local decrees prohibiting members of the Ahmadiyah sect from displaying signs identifying their mosques and schools.

The provincial regulations came into force after Islamist fanatics brutally murdered three Ahmadiyah adherents in early February. Two days later another mob of enraged Muslims rampaged through the streets and set fire to churches.

"Repeated calls by religious affairs minister Suryadharma Ali to ban the Ahmadiyah fan the flames of violence against the group," Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said in a statement.

"President Yudhoyono should signal that such discrimination has no place in a society that promotes religious tolerance and remove Suryadharma Ali from his post," he added.

A shocking video of one of the attacks shows hundreds of Muslim fanatics armed with machetes, sticks and rocks screaming 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Greater) as they set upon their victims in a wild frenzy.