Amir Tejo, Surabaya – The East Java administration has denied claims that it tried to relocate a group of Shia refugees by force from a housing block in Sidoarjo district to the much more cramped Sukolilo hajj dormitory in Surabaya.

Edi Purwinarto, an assistant to the East Java provincial secretary, said on Monday that the police officers and a bus sent last Friday by the administration to the Jemundo apartment complex, where the Shia community had been living since being driven from Madura Island earlier this year, were intended as assistance for several Shiites who wanted to go back to their hometown in Madura's Sampang district.

"We were only helping them to get home as soon as possible," Edi said. He added that a meeting had been held last Thursday attended by the Shia refugees, representatives from the Religious Affairs Ministry, the East Java administration and the rector of Sunan Ampel Surabaya Islamic University.

According to Edi, during the meeting, the 64 Shia families conveyed their hopes of returning to their hometown in Sampang and that the administration had taken down the details of those who wanted to return the following day. "On November 10, we prepared a bus for them. So they weren't forced to move, but they were in fact the ones who wanted it," Edi insisted.

He acknowledged that the Shia were not meant to be taken straight to Sampang, but instead moved "temporarily" to the Sukolilo hajj dormitory because Sunni clerics in Madura, responsible for driving them out in the first place, had demanded that they give a statement promising to "live harmoniously" with their new neighbors.

"We planned to put them at the hajj dormitory because we wanted to make sure they could live harmoniously. We also wanted to ensure that the conditions in Sampang were safe," Edi said.

The relocation plan failed on Sunday as the refugees refused to be relocated from Sidoarjo to Surabaya. The East Java administration said it could not force them to agree on the terms of for returning to Sampang.

"There was no effort to force or to secretly relocate them. If they were forced, that means we could be accused of transporting or dragging the refugees one by one into the bus. If they refused, then it's no problem," Edi said.

Iklil Al Milal, the head of the Shia group, denied that only some of them wanted to go back to Sampang. He said they all wanted to return but had asked to leave together and not in several groups.

He also said that, upon their return, the refugees wanted to be accompanied by the Shia organization Ahlul Bait Indonesia and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), which have been advocating on behalf of the group.

The Shia group was forcibly relocated to Sidoarjo in June from a sports hall in Sampang where it had languished after being driven from its home village in the district in August last year.

In both instances, the mob violence against the group was instigated by hard-line Sunni clerics, who have since demanded that the Shia members publicly renounce their faith. Local officials have largely sided with the demand.