 |
Showing posts with label Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Yudhoyono says Indonesia is tolerant nation
Yudhoyono says Indonesia is tolerant nation
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday defended Indonesia’s reputation for pluralism, as his government faces growing criticism over its failure to respond to a spate of religious hate crimes.
In an Independence Day speech, the ex-general accepted that the mainly Muslim country was facing “threats” to religious harmony but offered little to reassure minorities which have come under frequent attack in recent months.
“Even though there are challenges and threats to pluralism, tolerance and social harmony, we cannot move from our belief that Indonesia is a nation that is able to live in pluralism,” he said in a televised address.
“We have to defend this belief without any doubt.”
Local and international human rights groups have expressed outrage recently over sentences handed out to members of a religious lynch mob who killed three Muslim minority sect members in February.
A court jailed 12 members of the Sunni Muslim mob for three to six months each, even though they were caught on film viciously attacking Ahmadiyah sect members in front of police officers.
The same court on Monday jailed one of the Ahmadiyah survivors of the attack, a man who almost lost his hand in the violence, for six months for defending himself and his friends, prompting criticism from the United States.
“We are disappointed by today’s sentencing of Deden Sudjana who was a victim of the February 6 attacks,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
“We again encourage Indonesia to defend its tradition of tolerance for all religions, a tradition praised by President (Barack) Obama in his November 2010 visit to Jakarta.”
A panel of judges found Sudjana guilty of ill-treatment and ignoring an order to evacuate the sect’s property in Cikeusik, western Java, as the 1,500-strong mob arrived.
Earlier, the court gave a teenager who was filmed crushing one victim’s head with a stone only three months’ jail. That individual is already free and has been welcomed back to his village as a hero.
Anti-Ahmadiyah violence erupted again this week in Makassar, Sulawesi, when hundreds of Sunni extremists raided one of the sect’s places of worship on Sunday in front of police, who did nothing to intervene, rights groups said.
One sect member suffered severe head injuries and three local human rights workers who tried to stop the attack were badly beaten, Amnesty International said.
“The Ahmadiyah are not receiving adequate protection from the security forces or the courts,” Amnesty Internationals Asia-Pacific deputy director, Donna Guest, said in a statement.
“We fear that some groups now think that they can attack religious minorities and human rights defenders without any fear of serious consequences.”
The Ahmadiyah community claims to have some 500,000 followers in Indonesia, where it has been established since the 1920s after originating in South Asia.
It is regarded as heretical by mainstream Muslims because it teaches followers to regard the sect’s Indian founder as the last prophet of Islam, instead of Mohammed.
“Even though there are challenges and threats to pluralism, tolerance and social harmony, we cannot move from our belief that Indonesia is a nation that is able to live in pluralism,” he said in a televised address.
“We have to defend this belief without any doubt.”
Local and international human rights groups have expressed outrage recently over sentences handed out to members of a religious lynch mob who killed three Muslim minority sect members in February.
A court jailed 12 members of the Sunni Muslim mob for three to six months each, even though they were caught on film viciously attacking Ahmadiyah sect members in front of police officers.
The same court on Monday jailed one of the Ahmadiyah survivors of the attack, a man who almost lost his hand in the violence, for six months for defending himself and his friends, prompting criticism from the United States.
“We are disappointed by today’s sentencing of Deden Sudjana who was a victim of the February 6 attacks,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
“We again encourage Indonesia to defend its tradition of tolerance for all religions, a tradition praised by President (Barack) Obama in his November 2010 visit to Jakarta.”
A panel of judges found Sudjana guilty of ill-treatment and ignoring an order to evacuate the sect’s property in Cikeusik, western Java, as the 1,500-strong mob arrived.
Earlier, the court gave a teenager who was filmed crushing one victim’s head with a stone only three months’ jail. That individual is already free and has been welcomed back to his village as a hero.
Anti-Ahmadiyah violence erupted again this week in Makassar, Sulawesi, when hundreds of Sunni extremists raided one of the sect’s places of worship on Sunday in front of police, who did nothing to intervene, rights groups said.
One sect member suffered severe head injuries and three local human rights workers who tried to stop the attack were badly beaten, Amnesty International said.
“The Ahmadiyah are not receiving adequate protection from the security forces or the courts,” Amnesty Internationals Asia-Pacific deputy director, Donna Guest, said in a statement.
“We fear that some groups now think that they can attack religious minorities and human rights defenders without any fear of serious consequences.”
The Ahmadiyah community claims to have some 500,000 followers in Indonesia, where it has been established since the 1920s after originating in South Asia.
It is regarded as heretical by mainstream Muslims because it teaches followers to regard the sect’s Indian founder as the last prophet of Islam, instead of Mohammed.
© Agence France-Presse
URL: http://news.malaysia.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5164728
URL: http://news.malaysia.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5164728
Monday, April 27, 2009
Indonesian leader woos Islamists, upsets minorities
---Reuters India
ANALYSIS - Indonesian leader woos Islamists, upsets minorities
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Democrat Party speaks during party's convention in Jakarta April 26, 2009.By Sara Webb and Sunanda Creagh
JAKARTA (Reuters) — As Indonesia’s president courts Islamic parties to form a new coalition, religious and ethnic minorities fear this may undermine a tradition of tolerance in the mainly Muslim but officially secular Southeast Asian nation.
Such a shift could have far-reaching social and economic consequences, potentially stoking tensions between the majority Muslims and the minority Christians and Hindus, as well as prompting the mainly Christian, ethnic Chinese who dominate the business sector to park more of their assets offshore.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s reliance on a large, unwieldy coalition of Islamic and secular parties in his first term, including the Golkar Party which dominated politics during the Suharto era, made it much harder for him to tackle reform.
But in parliamentary polls this month, Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party tripled its share of the votes to about one fifth, putting him in a stronger position to form a more manageable coalition of parties with a common platform.
Already, Yudhoyono, or SBY as he’s often known, has said he may ally with the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), an Islamist party which lifted its share of the vote slightly to 8 percent, causing alarm among some Indonesians.
“The possibility that SBY will join with PKS makes us nervous,” said Sofjan Wanandi, Chairman of the Employers’ Association of Indonesia, citing concerns that the PKS might push to create an Islamic state once they had power.
“There is a lot of uncertainty around this. We don’t know if we can believe them,” he said.
“I don’t mind if we have a few ministers from PKS, but if they start to implement really nationalist policies then it could lead to something negative. Political stability is the most important thing to have to avoid capital flight.”
WIDER APPEAL?
The PKS’s push for reform and a crackdown on graft fits with Yudhoyono’s platform, but in other areas there is less of a fit.
Its network of cadres hold weekly study sessions to discuss Islam and while the party has tried to play down its Islamist reputation to widen its appeal, many Indonesians are skeptical, fearing it will push for more sharia-type laws.
Its economic policies veer towards the nationalist, and it has said it would push for the renegotiation of contracts in the energy and mining sector, which could deter foreign investors.
“PKS have a conservative ideology but are portraying themselves as open and moderate because they are also pragmatic,” said Mohamad Guntur Romli, a religious freedom activist.
“Right now, because the Democrat Party is winning, they will adapt because they want to get into the coalition. They will be careful about what they say.
Tifatul Sembiring, PKS chairman, told Reuters earlier this month that his party supported sharia principles, rather than sharia law, and wants all Indonesians to obey their respective religious teachings.
A close alliance between the Democrats and PKS would give the latter much greater influence and perhaps more cabinet posts, at a time when support for most other Islam-based parties – as well as for the two more established secular parties, Golkar and Megawati Sukarnoputri’s PDI-P – has declined.
Indonesia’s minorities – Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, as well as the ethnic Chinese who dominate the business sector – have already had a taste of what this conservative Muslim influence could mean in terms of policies.
As Yudhoyono’s relations with Golkar, his main coalition partner, soured last year, he backed policies favoured by the Islamist parties, passing an anti-porn law that upset Christians, Hindus, and liberal Muslims, and issuing restrictions on the Ahmadiyah, a minority sect that some Muslims consider heretical.
INFILTRATION
Earlier this month, a report backed by former President Abdurrahman Wahid warned that extremists and hardliners including the PKS were infiltrating moderate Muslim groups and institutions to press a more radical agenda.
The PKS denied having a secret agenda.
Even so, some moderate Muslims feel that Indonesia’s centuries-old form of Islam, influenced by mysticism, is under threat from a more conservative form of Islam, noting that polygamy is on the rise, more women and even small children wear the jilbab, and conversions to Islam have increased.
About 85 percent of Indonesia’s population of 226 million profess Islam, and the vast majority are considered moderate.
“Religious consciousness has been rising for the last five years. But that is (true) for other religions too,” Nasaruddin Umar, Director General of the Office of Islamic Guidance in the Department of Religion.
At the same time, an economic migration from predominantly Muslim areas to minority areas is sowing the seeds for religious and cultural conflict.
Thousands of Indonesians from the poorer parts of Java and Sulawesi islands have been lured by the prospect of jobs in the resource-rich areas of Papua and Kalimantan, which have large Christian and animist populations, and in the resort island of Bali, which is mainly Hindu.
In Papua, where a secessionist conflict has brewed for decades, analysts warn of the potential for religious-based clashes following an influx of Muslims to the mainly Christian, tribal areas at the easternmost extreme of Indonesia.
“The potential for communal conflict is high in Papua,” International Crisis Group warned in a report last year.
“Many indigenous Christians feel they are being slowly but surely swamped by Muslim migrants at a time when the central government seems to be supportive of more conservative Islamic orthodoxy, while some migrants believe that they face discrimination if not expulsion in a democratic system where Christians can exercise “tyranny of the majority”.”
URL: http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-39261020090427?sp=true
Mon Apr 27, 2009 8:22am IST
ANALYSIS - Indonesian leader woos Islamists, upsets minorities
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Democrat Party speaks during party's convention in Jakarta April 26, 2009.By Sara Webb and Sunanda CreaghJAKARTA (Reuters) — As Indonesia’s president courts Islamic parties to form a new coalition, religious and ethnic minorities fear this may undermine a tradition of tolerance in the mainly Muslim but officially secular Southeast Asian nation.
Such a shift could have far-reaching social and economic consequences, potentially stoking tensions between the majority Muslims and the minority Christians and Hindus, as well as prompting the mainly Christian, ethnic Chinese who dominate the business sector to park more of their assets offshore.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s reliance on a large, unwieldy coalition of Islamic and secular parties in his first term, including the Golkar Party which dominated politics during the Suharto era, made it much harder for him to tackle reform.
But in parliamentary polls this month, Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party tripled its share of the votes to about one fifth, putting him in a stronger position to form a more manageable coalition of parties with a common platform.
Already, Yudhoyono, or SBY as he’s often known, has said he may ally with the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), an Islamist party which lifted its share of the vote slightly to 8 percent, causing alarm among some Indonesians.
“The possibility that SBY will join with PKS makes us nervous,” said Sofjan Wanandi, Chairman of the Employers’ Association of Indonesia, citing concerns that the PKS might push to create an Islamic state once they had power.
“There is a lot of uncertainty around this. We don’t know if we can believe them,” he said.
“I don’t mind if we have a few ministers from PKS, but if they start to implement really nationalist policies then it could lead to something negative. Political stability is the most important thing to have to avoid capital flight.”
WIDER APPEAL?
The PKS’s push for reform and a crackdown on graft fits with Yudhoyono’s platform, but in other areas there is less of a fit.
Its network of cadres hold weekly study sessions to discuss Islam and while the party has tried to play down its Islamist reputation to widen its appeal, many Indonesians are skeptical, fearing it will push for more sharia-type laws.
Its economic policies veer towards the nationalist, and it has said it would push for the renegotiation of contracts in the energy and mining sector, which could deter foreign investors.
“PKS have a conservative ideology but are portraying themselves as open and moderate because they are also pragmatic,” said Mohamad Guntur Romli, a religious freedom activist.
“Right now, because the Democrat Party is winning, they will adapt because they want to get into the coalition. They will be careful about what they say.
Tifatul Sembiring, PKS chairman, told Reuters earlier this month that his party supported sharia principles, rather than sharia law, and wants all Indonesians to obey their respective religious teachings.
A close alliance between the Democrats and PKS would give the latter much greater influence and perhaps more cabinet posts, at a time when support for most other Islam-based parties – as well as for the two more established secular parties, Golkar and Megawati Sukarnoputri’s PDI-P – has declined.
Indonesia’s minorities – Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, as well as the ethnic Chinese who dominate the business sector – have already had a taste of what this conservative Muslim influence could mean in terms of policies.
As Yudhoyono’s relations with Golkar, his main coalition partner, soured last year, he backed policies favoured by the Islamist parties, passing an anti-porn law that upset Christians, Hindus, and liberal Muslims, and issuing restrictions on the Ahmadiyah, a minority sect that some Muslims consider heretical.
INFILTRATION
Earlier this month, a report backed by former President Abdurrahman Wahid warned that extremists and hardliners including the PKS were infiltrating moderate Muslim groups and institutions to press a more radical agenda.
The PKS denied having a secret agenda.
Even so, some moderate Muslims feel that Indonesia’s centuries-old form of Islam, influenced by mysticism, is under threat from a more conservative form of Islam, noting that polygamy is on the rise, more women and even small children wear the jilbab, and conversions to Islam have increased.
About 85 percent of Indonesia’s population of 226 million profess Islam, and the vast majority are considered moderate.
“Religious consciousness has been rising for the last five years. But that is (true) for other religions too,” Nasaruddin Umar, Director General of the Office of Islamic Guidance in the Department of Religion.
At the same time, an economic migration from predominantly Muslim areas to minority areas is sowing the seeds for religious and cultural conflict.
Thousands of Indonesians from the poorer parts of Java and Sulawesi islands have been lured by the prospect of jobs in the resource-rich areas of Papua and Kalimantan, which have large Christian and animist populations, and in the resort island of Bali, which is mainly Hindu.
In Papua, where a secessionist conflict has brewed for decades, analysts warn of the potential for religious-based clashes following an influx of Muslims to the mainly Christian, tribal areas at the easternmost extreme of Indonesia.
“The potential for communal conflict is high in Papua,” International Crisis Group warned in a report last year.
“Many indigenous Christians feel they are being slowly but surely swamped by Muslim migrants at a time when the central government seems to be supportive of more conservative Islamic orthodoxy, while some migrants believe that they face discrimination if not expulsion in a democratic system where Christians can exercise “tyranny of the majority”.”
URL: http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-39261020090427?sp=true
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Ahmadiyah and Indonesian Democracy
---Jakarta Globe
Opinion
March 12, 2009
Wim Tangkilisan
Ahmadiyah and Indonesian Democracy
The Koran is very clear that “in matters of faith there shall be no coercion.”
And it stresses that “if it had been the will of your Lord that all the people of the world should be believers, then all the people of the earth would have believed! Would you now compel humankind against their will to believe?”
Now comes a Muslim leader, Cholid Ridwan, a chairman of the Indonesian Council of Ulema, or MUI, who warns the President of Indonesia that if he does not outlaw Ahmadiyah, an Indonesian-based Islamic sect, the council will issue a fatwa, or religious edict, prohibiting Indonesian Muslims from voting for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the upcoming presidential elections.
Ahmadiyah is a sect of Indian origin, with some links to Sufism. It is controversial because of its claim that its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was the last of the prophets, [Author of this article is not correct about claim of Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as). For Ahmadiyya beliefs please visit www.alislam.org] contrary to the basic tenet of Islam that the final of the prophets is Muhammad.
The sect is not new to controversy. In the 1930s, it was rumored that independence hero and former President Sukarno had become a propagator of Ahmadiyah. He denied it in writing, but in the process he wrote a few words of praise for the good behavior of its adherents. He was emphatic, however, that he was not one of them.
Today there are Muslim circles in Indonesia that clamor for an outright ban against the sect. That is old news. What is new is the election-related threat of a fatwa against the president if he does not outlaw the sect.
Democracy is not just about elections. Even more essential is the way minorities are treated by the majority.
Another Muslim leader, Umar Shihab, also a chairman of the MUI, says that Cholid speaks only for himself. Furthermore, he says no such fatwa is being prepared. No threat of one. But, in effect he says that it would be nice indeed if the president did outlaw the sect.
The presidential spokesman, Andi Mallarangeng, says that this is just one more sign that everyone has caught election fever. “We don’t need to worry about it at all,” he said.
What indeed is there to worry about then? We perhaps have more urgent things to concern ourselves with, like corruption in the House of Representatives and getting the economic stimulus package up and running.
But wait a minute. There are basic questions involved in this issue that need attention.
There is, of course, the question of what Islam really teaches about tolerance, about the command against coercion on matters of faith. Where does it say in the Koran or in the Hadith that an exception has to be made in the case of the Ahmadiyah? The Muslim faithful may wish to obtain some clarity on that.
Since I am not a Muslim, I should let this be a matter among Muslims. But as an Indonesian, I am most concerned about the political implications of the issue. And when I say political, I don’t mean electoral politics. President Yudhoyono, I think, will win or lose the election on the basis of his performance as leader of the nation, fatwa or no fatwa.
What I mean is Indonesian democracy. I mean Indonesia’s aspiration and claim to be the world’s third largest democracy. I mean the pride that the Indonesian people derive from our international reputation as living proof that Islam, democracy and modernization can flourish together.
I mean human rights. Freedom of thought. Freedom of speech. Freedom of association.
Democracy is not just about elections. Even more essential to democracy is the way minorities are treated by the majority — whether their rights are held sacred or trampled upon.
We take pride in our tradition of m usyawarah untuk m ufakat , or consultations leading to consensus, a process in which all views are spoken for and all interests are taken into account. But all I have been hearing about Ahmadiyah are the threats against them.
Wim Tangkilisan is the president and editor in chief of the Jakarta Globe.
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/article/12571.html
Opinion
March 12, 2009
Wim Tangkilisan
Ahmadiyah and Indonesian Democracy
The Koran is very clear that “in matters of faith there shall be no coercion.”
And it stresses that “if it had been the will of your Lord that all the people of the world should be believers, then all the people of the earth would have believed! Would you now compel humankind against their will to believe?”
Now comes a Muslim leader, Cholid Ridwan, a chairman of the Indonesian Council of Ulema, or MUI, who warns the President of Indonesia that if he does not outlaw Ahmadiyah, an Indonesian-based Islamic sect, the council will issue a fatwa, or religious edict, prohibiting Indonesian Muslims from voting for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the upcoming presidential elections.
Ahmadiyah is a sect of Indian origin, with some links to Sufism. It is controversial because of its claim that its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was the last of the prophets, [Author of this article is not correct about claim of Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as). For Ahmadiyya beliefs please visit www.alislam.org] contrary to the basic tenet of Islam that the final of the prophets is Muhammad.
The sect is not new to controversy. In the 1930s, it was rumored that independence hero and former President Sukarno had become a propagator of Ahmadiyah. He denied it in writing, but in the process he wrote a few words of praise for the good behavior of its adherents. He was emphatic, however, that he was not one of them.
Today there are Muslim circles in Indonesia that clamor for an outright ban against the sect. That is old news. What is new is the election-related threat of a fatwa against the president if he does not outlaw the sect.
Democracy is not just about elections. Even more essential is the way minorities are treated by the majority.
Another Muslim leader, Umar Shihab, also a chairman of the MUI, says that Cholid speaks only for himself. Furthermore, he says no such fatwa is being prepared. No threat of one. But, in effect he says that it would be nice indeed if the president did outlaw the sect.
The presidential spokesman, Andi Mallarangeng, says that this is just one more sign that everyone has caught election fever. “We don’t need to worry about it at all,” he said.
What indeed is there to worry about then? We perhaps have more urgent things to concern ourselves with, like corruption in the House of Representatives and getting the economic stimulus package up and running.
But wait a minute. There are basic questions involved in this issue that need attention.
There is, of course, the question of what Islam really teaches about tolerance, about the command against coercion on matters of faith. Where does it say in the Koran or in the Hadith that an exception has to be made in the case of the Ahmadiyah? The Muslim faithful may wish to obtain some clarity on that.
Since I am not a Muslim, I should let this be a matter among Muslims. But as an Indonesian, I am most concerned about the political implications of the issue. And when I say political, I don’t mean electoral politics. President Yudhoyono, I think, will win or lose the election on the basis of his performance as leader of the nation, fatwa or no fatwa.
What I mean is Indonesian democracy. I mean Indonesia’s aspiration and claim to be the world’s third largest democracy. I mean the pride that the Indonesian people derive from our international reputation as living proof that Islam, democracy and modernization can flourish together.
I mean human rights. Freedom of thought. Freedom of speech. Freedom of association.
Democracy is not just about elections. Even more essential to democracy is the way minorities are treated by the majority — whether their rights are held sacred or trampled upon.
We take pride in our tradition of m usyawarah untuk m ufakat , or consultations leading to consensus, a process in which all views are spoken for and all interests are taken into account. But all I have been hearing about Ahmadiyah are the threats against them.
Wim Tangkilisan is the president and editor in chief of the Jakarta Globe.
URL: www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/article/12571.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
