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Muslims condemn Indonesian church attacks

-02/09/05

The Indonesian Ulema Council (IUC), the country’s most senior Islamic body, has condemned the forced closure of dozens of neighbourhood churches and some synagogues in West Java province, saying that such acts were intolerable, according to the Jakarta Post.

While the council has no plans to issue a fatwa (religious edict) against the force involved, IUC head Umar Shihab unequivocally said that all actions which disrupted religious activities were a form of violence, and as such could not be justified by the Qur’an or proper Muslim teaching.

“We really feel sorry and condemn these actions, and the council has clearly never tolerated such arbitrary things by taking the law into one’s own hands,” he declared during a government hearing on religious, social and women’s affairs earlier this week.

At least 23 churches in the West Java province have been forcibly closed by mobs during the past year. Christian and Muslim leaders have been calling on the government to take legal action against the hard-line Islamists involved.

Radical groups such as Laskar Jihad and Jemaah Islamiyah want a separate Islamic state in the region, and they have attacked Christian churches and villages.

Indonesian vice president Jusuf Kalla also condemned the actions and instructed the police to take appropriate legal measures against those involved.

The background to the current situation is a controversial ministerial decree on the construction of venues to host religious services, considered by many Christians to be an deliberate block on establishing new churches.

The Indonesian Ulema Council is a traditional body which has opposed pluralism and liberal Muslim scholarship, which makes its intervention even more significant.

Meanwhile, in a separate move yesterday, Indonesian judges are reported to have sentenced three women to three years in prison each for allegedly attempting to convert Muslim children by enticing them into a Christian Sunday School programme.

In April last year shootings of Christians were reported in the Poso Pesisir district on Sulawesi. In May 2004, the World Council of Churches called on the Indonesian government to put an end to religious violence between Muslims and Christians in the Malukus. And in December 2004, the Indonesian President called for all religions to be a force of peace against terrorism, and for religious tolerance to be promulgated.

Indonesia has a population of 21 million. 88 per cent are Muslim, 8 per cent Christian, 2 per cent Hindu and 1 per cent Buddhist.


Find books now:

Muslims condemn Indonesian church attacks

-02/09/05

The Indonesian Ulema Council (IUC), the country’s most senior Islamic body, has condemned the forced closure of dozens of neighbourhood churches and some synagogues in West Java province, saying that such acts were intolerable, according to the Jakarta Post.

While the council has no plans to issue a fatwa (religious edict) against the force involved, IUC head Umar Shihab unequivocally said that all actions which disrupted religious activities were a form of violence, and as such could not be justified by the Qur’an or proper Muslim teaching.

“We really feel sorry and condemn these actions, and the council has clearly never tolerated such arbitrary things by taking the law into one’s own hands,” he declared during a government hearing on religious, social and women’s affairs earlier this week.

At least 23 churches in the West Java province have been forcibly closed by mobs during the past year. Christian and Muslim leaders have been calling on the government to take legal action against the hard-line Islamists involved.

Radical groups such as Laskar Jihad and Jemaah Islamiyah want a separate Islamic state in the region, and they have attacked Christian churches and villages.

Indonesian vice president Jusuf Kalla also condemned the actions and instructed the police to take appropriate legal measures against those involved.

The background to the current situation is a controversial ministerial decree on the construction of venues to host religious services, considered by many Christians to be an deliberate block on establishing new churches.

The Indonesian Ulema Council is a traditional body which has opposed pluralism and liberal Muslim scholarship, which makes its intervention even more significant.

Meanwhile, in a separate move yesterday, Indonesian judges are reported to have sentenced three women to three years in prison each for allegedly attempting to convert Muslim children by enticing them into a Christian Sunday School programme.

In April last year shootings of Christians were reported in the Poso Pesisir district on Sulawesi. In May 2004, the World Council of Churches called on the Indonesian government to put an end to religious violence between Muslims and Christians in the Malukus. And in December 2004, the Indonesian President called for all religions to be a force of peace against terrorism, and for religious tolerance to be promulgated.

Indonesia has a population of 21 million. 88 per cent are Muslim, 8 per cent Christian, 2 per cent Hindu and 1 per cent Buddhist.