C.A.R. must not be abandoned!

When Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga (46) of Bangui preached on 21 July at the anniversary of his ordination, his distress was palpable.

"I can't remain silent while the sons of this country are the victims of the worst kind of barbarism.

"I can't remain silent while Central Africans are being tortured and killed, squashed like flies.

"I can't remain silent while our mothers and sisters are being raped.

"I can't remain silent while the dignity of the Central African is being trampled underfoot, while innocent people are being robbed, while the just and well-earned fruit of our country is being destroyed and looted as though we were in a house of cards.

"I can't remain silent when impunity reigns and a dictatorship of arms is being set up.

"I dare to hope that one or other person will hear in my voice the Central African people's cry of suffering."

See:
People in Central African Republic being killed ‘like flies,’ says prelate
Catholic World News, 25 July 2013

Other new and important articles on the crisis in Central African Republic.

‘Beelzebub inhabits hearts in this country’ 
Jonathan Luxmoore says clergy are being kidnapped, tabernacles profaned and Church hospitals ransacked in the Central African Republic
By Jonathan Luxmoore, for catholicherald.co.uk
Tuesday, 23 July 2013

Fear stalks Central African Republic after rebel takeover
Saudi Gazette, 20 July 2013

Central African Republic: Seleka Forces Kill Scores, Burn Villages
UN Security Council Should Sanction Abusive Seleka Leaders
Human Rights Watch, 27 June 2013

----------------------------------------------

Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012)

Bangladesh: Dhaka becomes a war zone

Background

Bangladesh: dangerous chaos looms
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 204, Wed 3 Apr 2013

Bangladesh: Islam Rising
By E Kendal, Religious Liberty Monitoring, 7 April 2013

On Sunday 5 May, Islamists fulfilled their threat to lay siege to Dhaka. By the end of the day, 28 were dead, hundreds were wounded and Dhaka's business district - the Motijheel Commercial Area - resembled a war zone.

At at least 100,000 Islamists enforced a blockade, cutting off Dhaka’s road links with the rest of the country.  Activists from Hefajat-e-Islam -- which translates as "protectorate of Islam" -- marched through six highways, paralysing road transport between Dhaka and other cities and towns.

The Islamists are demanding the government agree to their 13-point list of demands (see list here) - demands that would essentially turn Bangldesh into a Islamic State, Taliban-style.

Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina had urged the group to call off their demonstration, contending that existing law were sufficient to punish blasphemy. She even promised to introduce tougher penalties for those who defame Islam. The Islamists, however, are demanding that those found guilty of defaming Islam be sentenced to death. With their confidence and power and rage growing, the Islamists will not be easily appeased.

This battle is far from over.

Best reports:

Radical Islamists lay siege to Dhaka
By Anisur Rahman, Gulf News, 5 May 2013

Dhaka turns into battlefield
By Jubair Hasan and Yasir Wardad
Financial Express Bangladesh, Monday 6 May 2013

Dhaka: 28 dead as Islamists seek blasphemy law
AFP, Dhaka, 6 May 2013

Those keen to really comprehend the seriousness of the situation in Bangladesh should scroll through the follow photo collections from demotix.

Dhaka seized by Islamists
May 5th, 2013 by Abu Ala
The "Islamists" have seized the capital Dhaka demanding introduction of blasphemy laws and capital punishment of bloggers accused by them as blasphemous. They also demanded shariah law for the country.

Capital Dhaka virtually cut off from rest of the country
May 5th, 2013 by firoz ahmed
The capital city has been virtually cut off from the rest of the country as the leaders and activists of Hefajat-e Islam took position in all the entry points of Dhaka to press home its 13-point demand including the arrest of “atheist bloggers”.

Dhaka turns into a warzone as Hefajat clash with police
May 5th, 2013 by Rehman Asad.

Over 100 shops and 30 buses torched in Dhaka
May 5th, 2013 by Rehman Asad
Jamaat-Shibir activists joined by Hefajat-e Islam men set fire to at least 100 shops and business establishments, looted shops at Baitul Mukarram mosque complex and torched over 30 government buses in the capital.

Ongoing clash in Dhaka leaves many injured and death toll rising
May 5th, 2013 by zakir hossain chowdhury

3 killed as Paltan turns into battlefield in Dhaka
May 5th, 2013 by Rehman Asad

Dhaka paralyzed Hefazat post-siege rally at downtown Motijheel
May 5th, 2013 by Rehman Asad

------------------------------------
Elizabeth Kendal is author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012)

Bangladesh: Islam Rising

By Elizabeth Kendal

On Saturday 6 April 2013, hundreds of thousands of Islamists from across Bangladesh joined forces in a "long march" to Dhaka demanding that blasphemy laws be enacted and that bloggers who defame Islam be hung.

The march was organised by Hefajat-e-Islam (HeI), an offshoot of Jama'at-e-Islami.

MORE PHOTOS

SEE ALSO:
Video footage by Al Jazeera, 6 April 2013
Bangladesh protesters demand blasphemy law (1) & (2) 

Video footage by euronews, 6 April 2013
Secularists and Islamists clash at Bangladesh blasphemy protest

Hefajat-e-Islam has given the government until 30 April to accept their 13-point demand.  Hefajat-e-Islam leader Shah Ahmad Shafi warned: "If the demands are not met, the movement will be getting from tough to tougher. The consequence of the anti-Islamic government will be horrible."

He urged devout Muslims to get ready to embrace martyrdom to stop the "anti-Islamic" Shahbag [pro-secular] movement.

Background:
BANGLADESH: Dangerous Chaos Looms
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 204
3 April 2013

Bangladesh: Islam Rising

Timeline with links and recommended articles

2010: The Awami League-led government establishes the International Crimes Tribunal (a domestic court) to try 'Razakars' -- i.e. those accused of collaborating with Pakistan in war crimes during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence. The court is established to honour an election promise made by the quasi-secular Awami League in the run up to the 2008 elections.

January 2013: Trials commence amidst widespread concerns about lack of due process and politicisation.

International barrister Toby Cadman elaborates: "The government rejected suggestions from the international community of the necessity for transparency, strict adherence to legal precedent and involvement of unbiased outsiders. The government wrote its own rules. Charges were brought against 11 suspects out of an estimated total of 1,600. Each defendant held leadership roles in the opposition party Jamaat-e-Islami. . . Without Jamaat's votes, BNP [the opposition] is unlikely to regain power. . .

"I do not believe that there can be justice under the current tribunal, which is at best suspect, at worst a tool of a government looking to execute politicians for electoral gain."

Recommended reading: Bangladesh on the Brink
By Toby M. Cadman (barrister), Special to CNN,13 March 2013  

5 February 2013: Jama'at-e-Islami party assistant secretary General Abdul Qader Molla (a.k.a. the "Butcher of Mirpur") is sentenced to life imprisonment. Pro-secular forces led by bloggers and student activists protest the court's "leniency". Taking up residency in Dhaka's Shahbag Square, they demand sentences of death by hanging with no right of appeal. Subsequently the protests become known as the Shahbag protests.

NOTE: While the protests have been peaceful, the protestors are baying for blood and seem disinterested in due process.

Shahbag Protests: official website - PHOTOS

Recommended reading:
Unraveling Bangladesh’s ICT and the Shahbag Protests: Injustice in the Making
Georgetown, 25 March 2013

With the protests growing, the government -- the Awami League-led 14-party Grand Alliance -- interfers in the legal process, amending the law so that those convicted will not have any right of appeal while the government will have the right to appeal the court's rulings. The government replaces the chief judge and orders the court to consider the will of the people when making its rulings. 

Islamists accuse the protestors of being anti-Islamic and deserving of death for defaming Islam. They accuse the government of protecting blasphemers.

15 Feb 2013: "Atheist blogger" Ahmed Rajib Haider calls for a boycott of Jama'a-e-Islami affiliated institutions and businesses. Within hours he is dead -- hacked to death.

28 Feb 2013: Delwar Hossain Sayedee, a prominent member of the Jama'at-e-Islami party, is sentenced to death. Shahbag Square erupts in jubilation!

Islamic riots erupt. Deadly violence escalates -- minorities targeted.

See also: Anti-Hindu attacks rock Bangladesh
By Swadesh Roy, Asia Times online, 28 March 2013
Quote: The Jammat and BNP are now playing the minority card very tactfully, with the main goal of teaching Hindus that they are not safe in Bangladesh even [if] Awami league holds power. And that if the Jammat-BNP takes the reins, it would be better for them to leave.

''We will kill all the Malauns (they called the Hindus as Malauns [infidel]) and Bangladesh will be 'Banglastan' [Muslim only] like Pakistan,'' read a post of the website Basserkella, which is run by Jammat and their student organization Shibir.

Islamists threaten a national strike, declaring they will march on Dhaka on 6 April if bloggers who defame Islam are not prosecuted.

See also: Seeking war crimes justice, Bangladesh protesters fight 'anti-Islam' label
By Elizabeth Yuan and Farid Ahmed, CNN
1 March 2013
Bangladesh political crisis deepens
By Syed Tashfin Chowdhury
Asia Times online, 14 March 2013

13 March: To appease Islamists the Awami League-led government betrays its own pro-secular supporters and establishes a panel to investigate and punish bloggers who defame Islam. Mainuddin Khandaker, the senior home ministry official appointed to head the panel declared: "We will try our best to dig out what’s actually happening and find out the people who're making blasphemous comments against Islam and the Prophet."

Two popular blogs deemed "blasphemous" are immediately removed as authorities attempt "to ensure religious harmony".

Friday 29 March: Tens of thousands of Islamists fill the streets of Dhaka to pray. They demand the enactment of blasphemy laws; the arrest of bloggers who defame Islam; that laws be passed to punish MPs who defame Islam in the parliament. They also call for the restoration of the caretaker government, vowing to lay siege to the office of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina if their demands are not met. 

MORE PHOTOS (Daily Mail UK)

31 March: Islamists present panel head Mainuddin Khandaker with a list of around 34 "atheist" bloggers they accuse of spreading defamation and propaganda against Islam,  proposing the accused should first be given an opportunity to "repent" of their "sins" before being sued.  

PM Sheikh Hasina pledges to punish defamation of Islam.

1 April: Bloggers Subrata Adhikary Shuvo (24), Russell Parvez (36), and Mashiur Rahman Biplob (42) are arrested for blogging that the government was being biased toward Islamist views and ideologies when the country is supposed to be secular. After being paraded in handcuffs before the media, the three are remanded to custody for questioning.

3 April: Home Minister M.K. Alamgir confirms the government has a list of seven more "atheist bloggers" who will soon be arrested.

4 April: Popular blogger Asif Mohiuddin (29) -- who was serious injured on 14 January when he was stabbed in an Islamist attack -- is arrested and remanded to custody for three days to enable police to question him.   According to a police spokesman: "(Blogger) Asif Mohiuddin has been arrested on charges of hurting religious sentiment through his writings on blogs and Facebook."

As Bangladesh has no law against blasphemy or defaming Islam, those arrested are being charged with infringing the Information and Communication Technology Act of 2006. If found guilty, they face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 10 million taka (about 100 thousand euro). (AsiaNews)

Clearly the government is doing everything in its means to appease the Islamists. But of course, it will never be enough. Indeed, despite the arrests, Hefajat-e-Islam's "long march" to Dhaka goes ahead with the marchers calling for death penalties.

Meanwhile the Shahbag protestors are not giving in -- for they know what they have to lose. 

On the evening of 5 April, the anti-Islamists come out in force in response to a call for 24-hour shutdown of Dhaka. Holding torches aloft, they started blocking the streets.

6 April: The Islamists defy the shutdown and proceed on theri "long march", forcing police to work overtime to keep the Islamist and secularist forces separated. 

Two people were killed however. Times of India reports (7 April): "Two people were killed as Bangladesh's radical religious group Hefajat-e-Islam (HeI) activists clashed with anti-fundamentalist Shahbag protesters in Dhaka on Saturday [6 April]. . .  The slain included a ruling Awami League leader, who was killed in Faridpur. An anti-fundamentalist activist was killed in Dhaka."

A.W. Khan, who worked in Bangladesh for the International Crisis Group for a year and a half, told Emran Hossain of Huffington Post (3 April 2013) that he was not at all surprised at government's crackdown on bloggers, given its growing willingness to go along with the Islamists' agenda for political gain.

"These are uncharted waters for Bangladesh," said Khan. "Principally because this is the first time in its 42 year history that a popular non-political movement and Islamists have so heavily influenced the country's political climate. This has overturned the dominance of the three main players in Bangladeshi politics: the governing Awami League, the main opposition BNP [Bangladesh Nationalist Party] and the military."

With Bangladesh polarising and both sides demanding death to the other, the stage is being set for a bloody confrontation.  With Islam rising and both sides of politics advancing Islamisation, the future of Bangladesh as a secular state hangs in the balance.

Toby Cadman concludes his analysis with this dire warning: "Bangladesh is descending into sectarian conflict every bit as serious as its competitors for attention . . . Failure to find a resolution could see the country descend into civil war."

------------------------------------------

Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012)

Moros take the battle to Sabah. Having already lost their liberty, Sabah's Christians now face losing their peace.

By Elizabeth Kendal

Between 9th and 12th February 2013, as many as 235 ethnic Tausug from the Southern Philippines landed on the coast of eastern Sabah at Masjid Lama, near Lahad Datu, many armed with assault rifles and grenade launchers. Led by Raja Muda Azzimudie Kiram, the brother of the Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram III, the militants claimed to be members of the Royal Sulu Army.

Initially the Malaysian government tread softly, asking the "intruders" to put down their arms and leave peacefully. The Tausug militants defiantly declined and a stand-off ensued. Eventually, after a fire-fight left at least six Malaysian policemen dead -- some reportedly beheaded -- Malaysia responded with force, deploying fighter jets in a full-blown air assault that killed at least 56 of the Filipino "terrorists".

Across the Moro-dominated southern Philippines, the Malaysian response has been branded an "atrocity". The fact that the Philippine's government has supported the Malaysian "atrocity" has further inflamed Moro hostility towards Manila.

Stratfor Global Intelligence (26 Feb) elaborates: "One of myriad ethnic groups spread across Southeast Asia, the Tausug are centered in Jolo in the Sulu Archipelago but stretch from Malaysia and Indonesia on Borneo to Mindanao in the southern Philippines. The territory comprises what was once the Sultanate of Sulu, and the group has claimed it does not need to leave Malaysian territory because it is still part of the Sultanate.

"[The Tausugs] are traditionally maritime people who claim Islam came to the area by the 1300s and that the first Islamic sultanate of Sulu was established in the mid-1400s by a member of the Hashemite family and a direct descendent of the Prophet Mohammed. In the 1870s, the sultanate leased its territory in Sabah on Borneo to the British, and the British passed the territory on to Malaya. Malaysia still pays a nominal 'rent' to the Sulu Sultanate -- currently less than $2,000 per year -- and this is being shown as proof by the current Sulu Sultan that even Malaysia recognized Sulu sovereignty over Sabah."

Whether Malaysia's annual payment to the Sultan is for rental or purchase of Sabah remains a hotly contested issue.  Consequently, impoverished and marginalised oil-rich Sabah is contested territory!

SABAH AND THE MNLF

In 1967, plotters within the Philippine military associated with President Ferdinand Marcos conspired to establish a force of commandos that would invade and destabilise Sabah giving the Philippine government grounds to intervene in Sabah on the pretext of protecting Filipinos living there. To this end some 200 Tausug and Sama Filipino Muslims from Sulu and Tawi-Tawi were recruited, armed and trained -- wooed with promises of an allowance and eventual accession into the Philippine Armed Forces. The commando unit was named Jabidah. Initial training was conducted in the island-town of Simunul in Tawi-Tawi. Then, on 30 Dec 1967, the recruits were sent to the island of Corregidor in Luzon for "specialised training."

A few months later everything unravelled when the Tausug and Sama Muslims learned they would have to fight and kill fellow Muslims in Sabah, possibly even their own Tausug and Sama relatives.  When the Muslims mutinied, the Philippine soldiers decided to eliminate them. The exact number of how many Muslim recruits were executed in Corregidor is unknown. The Moro struggle was born!
    
See: "THE CORREGIDOR MASSACRE - 1968"
By Paul F. Whitman

Founded by Nur Misuari in 1969, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) waged jihad against the Philippine government for independence of the Bangsamoro people in Southern Philippines. Headquartered in Sabah through the 1970s, the MNLF received backing from Malaysia.

In 1976 the MNLF and Manila agreed to a provisional peace accord -- the sides have been negotiating ever since.

Included in those negotiations has been the Philippine claim over Sabah. While Manila seems keen to drop the issue the MNLF is not. The Moros (Filipino Muslims) have strong ethnic ties to Sabah. And as part of the historic Sultanate of Sulu, Sabah has always been included in MNLF's territorial demands.

Manila has never renounced its claim to Sabah but has used the claim as leverage to win Malaysian support in brokering peace with the more hardline Islamist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which split from the MNLF in 1978 to continue the jihad. Meanwhile Malaysia has used role as mediator in the MILF conflict for domestic political gain, promoting itself as the defender of the rights of Philippine Muslims.

Every Philippine government wants to go down in history as the government that brokered peace in the south. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's hasty 2008 deal collapsed under the weight of its own flaws and President Benigno S. Aquino III's hasty and flawed Oct 2012 Framework Agreement was always going to lead to conflict. For by brokering an agreement with the MILF that totally undermined the agreement already held with the MNLF the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) made conflict inevitable.

Indeed, the crisis in Sabah has its roots in the ill-fated "Framework Agreement" struck last October between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT, PLUS A BIT ON THE SIDE

Noel Tarrazona reports for Asia Times on line of a "Quiet quid pro quo".

"In an apparent non-disclosed component of the MILF peace deal, Manila agreed to drop its historical claim to territories in Sabah in exchange for the establishment of a Philippine consulate in Sabah, according to a source familiar with the provision. Revelations of the concession to Malaysia reportedly infuriated Kiram [the sultan] and the MNLF leadership, according to the same source. Manila has cooperated with Kuala Lumpur throughout the crisis and pressured Kiram to recall his followers.

"Kiram, who resides in Manila and reportedly suffers from diabetes, has so far defied those official demands while his family members have issued new threats. After Malaysia's assault on his rag tag royal militia, Princess Celia Fatima Kiram warned of a 'long civil war' in Sabah. Kiram's apparent strong links to the MNLF, once the country's largest rebel group with 15,000 under arms and increasingly disenchanted with Manila, give weight to that threat.

"MNLF leaders have spoken out forcefully in the wake of the assaults. MNLF Islamic Council Committee Chairman Habib Hashim Mudjahab said on Tuesday [5 March] that he could no longer hold back his people from traveling to Sabah to defend their ethnic brethren from Malaysian forces. 'We are hurt and many of our people, even non-combatants are going to Sabah to sympathize with the Sultanate,' Mudjahab said.

"MNLF political chief officer Gapul Hajirul warned that the signs of a civil war are already apparent in Sabah, referring apparently to the militant ambush on police forces in Semporna. The attack indicated to some observers that an underground Tausug movement is already organized and undertaking insurgent operations in Sabah. 'I am afraid there will be civil war in Sabah because thousands of Bangsamoro (Filipino Muslims) are residing in Sabah,' Hajirul said without elaborating.

"MNLF leader Nur Misuari told reporters on Tuesday that if Malaysia targets Filipinos based in Sabah his group would consider it 'tantamount to a declaration of war.' He also warned Philippine President Benigno Aquino that any attempt to arrest Kiram would plunge the country into chaos. . ."

SEE: Threats of a wider war in Sabah
By Noel Tarrazona, Asia Times on line, 7 March 2013

Ida Lim (The Malaysian Insider, 2 March 2013) similarly warns of the danger of escalation.

"The Lahad Datu standoff could widen into a civil war engulfing Sabah, a Philippine separatist leader has warned as a Muslim rebel army moved to entrench itself in the Borneo state. . ."

She too quoted Hajirul: "I am afraid there will be a civil war in Sabah because thousands of Bangsamoro are residing in Sabah. It's only MNLF chairman Nur (Misuari) who could decide on the matter. Whatever his decision, we will follow. Our Tausug brothers and sisters of Sulu and the Samals in Tawi-Tawi were saddened and are hurting by the turn of the events."

Lim notes that the news portal the Philippine Star estimates that more than 8,500 Filipinos, mostly Tausugs or Suluk tribesmen, are residing in Sabah and are potential supporters of the Sultanate of Sulu.

Observers largely agree that the ultimate purpose of the invasion of "a few boatloads of bandits, cannot conceivably be to claim Sabah by force". On the contrary, it is widely believed that the Sultan and MNFL have merely manufactured a crisis at a strategic moment -- virtually on the eve on Malaysia's federal elections (due by June) -- so as to leverage themselves into the on-going GRP - MILF negotiations. 

Malaysian commentators have lambasted the Malaysian government: "This Umno-led effort [mediating peace between the GRP and MILF] is clearly making a grand show of Muslim solidarity, in a desperate attempt to secure Malay-Muslim votes in the peninsula, as well as Muslim Filipino and Indonesian migrants' votes in Sabah.

"Umno's botched attempt at brokering a peace deal in the southern Philippines has cost us heavily: hundreds of Sabahan villagers along the east coast have been made refugees, eight (or more) policemen have lost their lives, and Sabah has been drawn ever deeper into the conflict in the southern Philippines. . . "

Meanwhile, Philippine president Benigno Aquino III is also paying a heavy price in Philippine media for appearing to sanction the foreign use of deadly force against Philippine rebels seen to be making a legitimate claim to what they regard as their historic homeland.

MALAYSIA'S BETRAYAL OF SABAH YIELDING BITTER FRUIT

When Sabah joined Sarawak, Malaya and Singapore to form independent Malaysia in 1963, it was on the conditions of a 20-point agreement that included the following: There should be no state religion and the provisions relating to Islam in Federal Constitution should not apply; and, English should be the official language for all purposes without limitation of time.

Donald Stephens, a Kadazan-Dusun Christian who played an important role in bringing Sabah into Malaysia, became the first Chief Minister.

According to the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF) Malaysia, "before 1963, Sabah and Sarawak were guided by their native customs and by British laws. The influence of Islam was marginal."

At that time Sabah was a multi-ethnic, plural state, with the predominantly Christian Kadazan-Dusun being the largest ethnic group, comprising around 32 percent. (Today they comprise about 17.8 percent.)

However, from 1967, under the chief ministership of Mustapha Datu Harun, policies were enacted  to unify the peoples of Sabah through the imposition of one language, Bahasa Malaysia, and one religion, Islam. The United Sabah Islamic Association, funded by the government, was established with the specific task of conversion. Mass conversion particularly in the rural areas became the norm. Rumours had it that the government applied pressure and resorted to bribery to obtain converts to Islam. Mustapha used his emergency powers to expel all expatriate Christian missionaries on the grounds that they perpetuated an imperialist mentality.

By 1973, Islam had been made the official religion of the state and Bahasa Malaysia had been adopted as the state's sole official language.

When UMNO entered state politics in Sabah in the1990s, it opened the floodgates for mass immigration and naturalisation of Muslims from Indonesia and Southern Philippines, essentially "to weaken the indigenous Kadazan-Dusun Christians and to enhance UMNO powerbase" (NECF). This systematic granting of citizenship to immigrants was known as Project IC (for Identity Card) or Project M (for Mahathir Mohamad). (See: Project IC's Chickens coming home to roost, Malaysiakini, 3 March.)

Today local Sabahans are a minority in Sabah. Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani wrote of this July 2010, quoting MP Lim Kit Siang: "After 47 years, Sabahans are now concerned that they have become the minority and strangers in their own land. How can Sabah's population of 400,000 during the formation of Malaysia in 1963 be now multiplied to over three million today?" [That figure includes up to 1.7 million migrants (Nov 2007): NECF.]

Furthermore, religious liberty is now illusory. David Fung writes: "In Sabah, since 1978 it has been an offence for anyone to propagate any religious doctrine or belief without the permission of the Sabah Majlis Ugama Islam among Muslims, and the offence shall be tried before the magistrate's court and punishable with imprisonment of up to one year or a fine up to RM3,000 or both.

"Attempted apostasy out of the religion of Islam is apparently also an offence for the Muslim who has shown by word or conduct that he or she intentionally claims to cease to profess Islam or declares himself or herself to be a non-Muslim.

"The syariah court has the power to order that the apostate (murtad) be detained in the Islamic Rehabilitation Centre for a maximum period of 36 months on the pretext of rehabilitating the person so that the person could repent of the attempted apostasy."

For more on the Islamisation of Sabah, see:

The broken oath and Sabah’s ‘curse’
In Sabah pressure to convert to Islam 'was particularly great on those in politics'.
By David Fung (a Sabah based advocate and solicitor), 3 January 2012.

Sabah: A report by the national Evangelical Christian Fellowship (NECF) Malaysia.

"BLOWBACK" / "KARMA"

Over the decades the Malaysian government has been so focused on winning Muslim votes and importing Muslim vote-cattle that they failed to consider the long-term consequences.

Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific Editor for The Australian (9 March), describes the Sabah conflict the latest battleground of "blowback" - "where people who are trained for covert action return to bite the hand of the people who have fed and armed them."

Ramon Tulfo, Philippine Daily Inquirer (20 Feb), describes "the whole saga [as] a case of 'karma' on Malaysia".

Tolfu writes: "Malaysia is in a no-win situation as a result of the standoff in Sabah.

"If it uses deadly force on a small group of armed Filipino Muslims now holed up in the village of Tanduo in Lahad Datu town in Sabah, members of the fiercest of Philippine Moro tribe, the Tausogs of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, will retaliate.  . . .

"There is no record of the number of Filipinos, mostly Tausogs, in Sabah. But a friend of mine who used to be in the Philippine military intelligence estimates that one-third of the population in the Malaysian state is Tausog.

"Many of the people in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi have relatives in Sabah, which is just one hour by speedboat from Simunul in Tawi-Tawi.

"If the Tausogs in Sabah rise up in revolt against the Malaysian government, their relatives in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi will go to Sabah and fight with them.

"To the Tausogs, the claim of the group purporting to represent the Sultanate of Sulu that Sabah belongs to the sultanate is legitimate."

Doubtless presenting a Western perception, The Economist (23 Feb), reports: "The sultan, Jamalul Kiram III . . . is now a merely symbolic figure. His claim to Sabah is a romantic fantasy, yet one that grips the imagination of those hoping for another golden [Islamic] era."

In contrast, Tulfo (a Filipino journalist) maintains: "The Sulu Sultanate, long dormant and somewhat forgotten because of the war waged by the Tausog-led MNLF against the government, is still revered by Moros in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

"Tausogs respect the Sultan of Sulu in much the same way Malaysians pay homage to their royal family.

"If harm is done to Rajah Mudah Agbimuddin Kiram, brother of Sultan Jamalul Kiram, who ordered the Mudah Agbimuddin to enter Sabah, his fellow Tausogs in Sabah and in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi will take up arms against the Malaysian government. . .

"My source in Sulu said that even before the landing of 200 men in Lahad Datu last week [early-mid Feb], the Sultanate had already sent armed men in small groups to Sabah to escape notice from authorities. The armed groups are being coddled by Tausogs in the Malaysian state. . ."

Tulfo concludes: "When the (Philippines) government was fighting the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) in the 1970s through the 1980s, Malaysia was secretly supporting the rebellion in the South.

"Weapons coming from Libya and other Middle East countries passed through Malaysia on their way to the MNLF.

"Now, it seems the shoe is on the other foot.

"The law of karma is being played out."

Kuala Lumpur-based political analyst Nile Bowie writes for Asia Times on line (12 March): "The Philippine government under President Benigno Aquino has sided with Malaysia and reiterated its call to Kiram's followers to surrender to prevent further bloodshed. Aquino has spoken of punishing the sultan and his men for masterminding the armed rebellion in Sabah, prompting a domestic backlash that threatens fragile peace deals with separatist militant groups sympathetic to Kiram's cause. . .

"Nur Misuari, leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), warned the Aquino government of chaos if Kiram is arrested or his men apprehended. . .

"At a recent press conference, Misuari stated, '. . . [If] there is an attempt even to arrest the sultan, I understand. Let them do that. The country will be in total chaos if they do, I promise you'."

Bowie concludes: "As many Filipinos categorize the actions taken by Malaysia as 'atrocities', a credible threat exists in the prospect of a wider war if MNLF soldiers establish a foothold in Sabah. While [Malaysian Prime Minister] Najib's position will likely remain firm, the risks are rising of a wider crisis as security forces engage militants and reports from the front stir nationalistic passions."

Underneath all this is Sabah's longsuffering Christian community. Having already lost their liberty, Sabah's Christians must be wondering if they are about to lose their peace. 

-----------------------------------------

Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah SPeaks to Christians Today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012)

Tanzania: Pastor beheaded as Muslims demand the total Islamisation of the meat industry.

By Elizabeth Kendal

In Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 198, reference is made to the 11 February beheading of a Protestant pastor  in Geita, in north-west Tanzania. This posting examines the context of that killing.

CONTEXT OF THE GEITA KILLING

The 11 February 2013 beheading in Geita, of Pastor Mathayo Kachili of the Tanzania Assemblies of God Church (TAG) has its source in a debate presently raging in Tanzania.

Apparently it is a "long-standing tradition" in Tanzania that Muslims have a monopoly on the meat industry.

Recently however, Christians in Geita district, Mwanza region -- on the southern shores of Lake Victoria -- have entered the butchery trade, causing outrage amongst Muslims.

Tensions escalated over several months until, in early February, the Minister of State in the President's Office responsible for social relations, planning coordination, Mr Stephen Wassira, travelled to Mwanza to meet with Christian and Muslim leaders in an effort to defuse tensions.

THE FOLLY OF APPEASEMENT

According to The Citizen (7 Feb), Mr Stephen Wassira categorically directed that the task of slaughtering animals for public consumption should be executed only by Muslims. He said that people of other faiths may slaughter animals if the meat is solely for family/private consumption – but certainly not for sale to, or consumption by, the general public.

Mr Wassira declared that, should non-Muslims want to go into the meat business, then the slaughtering must be done according to Islamic tenets and rituals. "In effect," writes Karl Lyimo of the Citizen, "the minister has barred non-Muslims from the meat business – unless and until they are ready, willing, able and glad to follow the Islamic rituals to the letter."

Lyimo continues: "Reportedly, religious leaders of the Christian faith were barred by the regional government from making a public statement on the matter for fear of agitating their followers against the 'Wassira Proclamation'. In the event, priests have called upon their followers to 'retaliate' by boycotting 'Muslim-oriented' butcheries – and are planning to seek judicial intervention via the courts system."

See: Does religion have a role in trade, politics?
By Karl Lyimo, The Citizen, 7 Feb 2013

On 11 February, Muslim fury over the Christian boycott of 'Muslim-oriented' butcheries along with the Christian leaders' threat to have the discrimination addressed through the courts erupted into a full-blown pogrom.

A spokesperson for the Geita Regional Police Commander's Office, Mr Denis Stephano, reports that a group of youths believed to be Muslims assaulted several Christians using sticks and machetes and attacked a butchery owner at Buseresere town. During the confrontations pastor Kachili was beheaded. Several others were injured, some critically, and were admitted to Buseresere hospital to receive treatment.

See: Tanzania: TAG Pastor Beheaded in Religious Skirmishes
By Meddy Mulisa, 12 February 2013

Butchers languishing under the boycott are pleading with Christian leaders to just stop rocking the boat! One butcher laments that people are now asking who has killed the meat! "This is a foolish question," he said. "Where is this country heading?" With Islam growing in confidence on account of decades of quiet radicalisation (see RLPB 182) and Christians feeling offended at the prospect being forced to eat halal meat while being discriminated against in the market place, Tanzania may well be heading for trouble.

See: Butchers in a bind as faith row over right to slaughter rages
Saturday, 16 February 2013

For more on the halal meat trade see:  
RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE: SOURCE OF FRACAS BETWEEN CHRISTIANS AND GOVERNMENT IN TANZANIA
Posted by Daniel Mwankemwa on 7 February 2013

ISLAMIC INTOLERANCE TO BLAME?

According to Karl Lyimo (The Citizen, 7 Feb) the status quo, wherein the Muslims monopolised the meat trade, was generally accepted until recently when Islamic intolerance made it unacceptable.

"In the history of this country from the colonial days and up to a few months ago, how and by whom livestock was slaughtered had never been an earthshaking issue. Apparently, non-Muslims – including especially Christians – didn't really mind one way or another.

"That was until May last year when a pastor was detained by the authorities in Singida, central Tanzania, for 'following Christianity rituals and norms including those on meals'. This was at a funeral of one follower of the Pentecostal Evangelistic Fellowship of Africa (PEFA) at Kalakala Village in Kiomboi District on May 6, 2012!

"According to a Web-posting on May 16, 2012 by Daniel Mwankemwa, PEFA Pastor James Moses was accused of slaughtering animals for consumption at the funeral without following Muslim 'halal' rituals. In the event, he was arrested and remanded at the Nduguti Police Post following a formal complaint by 'Sheikh Hamza Thabit, a Muslim village leader'.

"Not only had the pastor informed the mourners that the funeral and associated events would follow Christian norms and tenets; the man had also prepared fish for mourners who were averse to eating 'non-halal' food. Some Muslims who attended the funeral refused to partake of the meals, 'claiming that the meat was slaughtered against Islamic Sharia.'

"Enter 'Wassira & C'’ at centre stage a little more than six months later, seeking to 'impose' religions rituals on all Tanzanians regardless! Clearly, not only does this fly in the face of the country's free market economy and liberalised trade. It also cuts across the Constitution which proclaims freedoms and rights regarding religious preferences and practices."

Lyimo concludes by warning that it is imperative that Tanzania remain secular. "Anything less than this," writes Lyimo, "and Tanzania will sooner than later be plunged into a 24-carat religious conflict. Mark my words!"

In an 18 February editorial The Citizen asks: 'Where have we gone wrong and why? Could it be we have taken our peace too much for granted that we abandoned the need for constant reminders that we need to safeguard it most jealously?'

COMMITTEEE FORMED

After meeting with Muslim and Christian leaders in the Mwanza region on 16 February, Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda told reporters: "Traditionally Muslims have been [the ones who slaughtered animals] in this country, but we have this conflict and I have formed a committee of religious leaders to look for a permanent solution. Therefore, [while] the committee will be working hard to get a permanent solution, Muslims will continue to do this job for us all."

See: Tanzania forms interfaith committee to review slaughtering rules
By Deodatus Balile in Dar es Salaam, 19 February 2013

AND THE STING IN THE TAIL . . .

Writing from Dar es Salaam, Deodatus Balile (above) reports that Geita Acting Regional Police Commander Paul Kasabago has confirmed that three people have been arrested in connection to the events of 11 February. They are Pastor Isaya Rutta, who slaughtered animals on church grounds, and two members of Rutta's church. The three Christians will be charged with "breaking health laws, inciting the public and causing the death of [Pastor Mathayo Kachili].

"Police have not yet arrested anyone suspected of perpetrating the actual violence against [Kachili]."

This case must be watched very closely.

----------------------------------------

Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
"Turn back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today"
(Deror Books, Dec 2012)

The Islamisation of Turkey: the case of Fazil Say

by Elizabeth Kendal

For background on the Islamisation of Turkey see my earlier post:
Erodgan, Ergenekon, Europe and the Islamisation of Turkey
Religious Liberty Monitoring, 13 Oct 2012

The Case of Fazil Say

Energetic, world renowned virtuoso classical and jazz pianist Fazil Say (42) has filled concert halls around the world, performing with the philharmonic orchestras of Berlin, New York, Tokyo and Israel. He has also served as a cultural ambassador for the European Union.

In April, in the course of a Twitter conversation, Say retweeted a verse by the 11th-century Persian poet Omar Khayyam which mocks pious Islamic hypocrisy by asking believers: "You say rivers of wine flow in heaven: is heaven a tavern to you? / You say two houris [beautiful virgins] await each believer there: is heaven a brothel to you?"

Other tweets to have caused "offense" include one where Say joked about a call to prayer that lasted only 22 seconds. "Why such haste?" Say tweeted. "Have you got a mistress waiting or a raki [alcoholic drink] on the table?"

And another: "I am not sure if you have also realised it, but if there's a louse, a non-entity, a lowlife, a thief or a fool, it's always an Islamist."

Three people filed complaints, and on 1 June, prosecutors charged Say with inciting hatred and public enmity, and with insulting "religious values". He faces a maximum 18 months prison term, although any sentence is likely to be suspended.

On Tuesday 16 Oct, Say sent a note to a gathering of artists in which he said he was "amazed" he was having to appear in the dock. "All my life, I have represented the modern face of Turkey to the world through my art," he said. "I feel weird because I am facing the threat of being punished with a case like this."

AFP reports: "Say has also often criticised the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), accusing it of having a secret agenda to Islamise Turkey.

"In April, Say told the Hurriyet newspaper that he felt completely ostracised by Turkish society since he declared that he was an atheist, an experience that for him highlighted a growing culture of intolerance."

At a concert performance the night before his 18 October court appearance, Say read out a prepared statement: "Many intellectual friends, journalists are behind bars for reasons we can't know or understand.

"I can't even begin to explain this era. Believe me this reminds me of Nazi Germany the most.

"It is perhaps an honor to be tried because of retweeting a verse of Khayyam in an era like this. . . I have committed no crime. . . We are modern individuals, not a flock.

"If this is a dark era, then let us enlighten it."

On 18 October, "a visibly upset Say" told the Istanbul court, " I reject all the accusations."

AFP reports: "In a written defence submitted to the court, Say said he did not seek to insult anybody, but was merely expressing his uneasiness with people who were abusing religion for their own benefits. 'What I have done as an artist is to share my thoughts with my followers. . .  It is clear that I haven’t invited anybody to spread violence, or jeopardised public peace.'"

Say's lawyers requested an immediate acquittal; however this was rejected. The court adjourned the case to 18 February 2013.

Turkey -- a model of Islamic democracy?

See:
Tweeting Turkish pianist Fazil Say denies religious insult charge
By Nick Tattersall, Reuters, 19  October 2012 

Turkish pianist on trial for insulting Islam
Reuters, Thursday Oct 18, 2012

Turkish pianist ‘insulted Islam’
AFP, October 19, 2012

Turkish musician accused of Islam insults
By Daniel Dombey in Istanbul October 18, 2012

Erodgan, Ergenekon, Europe and the Islamisation of Turkey

By Elizabeth Kendal

A column by Andrew C. McCarthy, in National Review Online, has motivated me to find time -- between writing on pogroms, massacres, dispossession, imprisonments and tortures -- to highlight a grossly under-appreciated and deeply-controversial matter: How Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is exploiting European ignorance and timidity to advance Islamisation in Turkey.

In his column, entitled, "Why Turkey Will Never Join the EU" (NRO, 29 Sept 2012), McCarthy has a lot to say about Turkey, Islam and Europe that is of critical importance.  I have long shared his view. It is a position that has frequently put me at odds with European evangelicals.

McCarthy opens with these words: "When Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister of Turkey, it was anything but clear that he would last more than a few months. The military, the constitutional guardian of Atatürk's secular order, had killed the Islamist administration of Erdogan's mentor, Necmettin Erbakan, only a few years earlier. At the time, Erdogan was jailed for several months as a seditionist. Though he was nonetheless permitted to assume the prime minister's office in 2003 after leading his Islamist party to victory, the man who famously proclaimed 'I am a servant of sharia' still aroused great suspicion.

"To survive and thrive, Erdogan would have to find ways to erode and nullify his Kemalist opponents. Thanks to Europe, he had cards to play."

As McCarthy notes, Turkish integration into the West had long been a "Kemalist dream". Erdogan, however, knows the truth: European leaders will never accept Turkey into the European Union (EU).

Terrified of being accused of Islamophobia, European elites have opened their arms to Turkey while setting up a process -- a series of hoops through which Turkey must jump -- the end result of which will be EU-Integration. Knowing Turkey will never achieve EU-integration -- and not caring, because he doesn't actually want it -- Erdogan is masterfully exploiting the situation to advance his own agenda: the Islamisation of Turkey.

"For", writes McCarthy, "among the steps Turkey must theoretically climb on the ladder to Euro-worthiness are religious liberty, the separation of religion and the state, and civilian control of the military. As Erdogan saw, the EU-integration process was the surest way to cow the generals into accepting elected Islamists and to break secularist constraints on Islamic supremacism."

McCarthy describes Islam as "totalitarianism packaged as 'religion'". I likewise have described Islam as totalitarianism concealed under or protected by a cloak of religion. It is precisely because socio-political, imperialistic, totalitarian Islam covers itself with "religion", it can appeal to religious liberty every time it is challenged. Furthermore, it is precisely because Islam is totalitarian and supremacist, that "liberty and Sharia cannot share the same space".

"In Turkey," writes McCarthy, "the administrators of the Kemalist governmental model — comprising Muslims who understood Islam intimately [better than the EU] — suppressed Islam not to deny freedom of conscience but to enable it. They were trying to forge exactly the sort of secular civil society Europeans revere. They knew it could not coexist with sharia. Thus, the government assumed supervision of the country's 80,000 mosques, vetted the imams, controlled the content of sermons and literature, and aggressively monitored the Islamic charities. The Muslims running the state realized that Islam would inevitably work against secular civil society if left to its own devices. [. . .]

McCarthy makes the point that the difference between Turkey and the West, is that Turkey has been trying to "cultivate freedom in an Islamic setting, not preserve freedom in a preexisting culture of liberty". And, he notes, "In a mainstream-Islamic society, the threat of reversion to a freedom-devouring sharia societal system always looms."

"Kemalist Muslims wanted a flourishing civil society but realized they could not keep one unless Islam's supremacist proclivities were permanently checked. Though very far from perfect, they were trying to establish a prosperous, Western-style nation-state. The Kemalists, unlike sharia adherents, never sought to strangle freedom of conscience. There was never any prohibition on being a Muslim, believing in Islam, or privately adhering to Islam's spiritual elements. It was Islam's extra-spiritual aspects — political, social, economic, military, etc. — that were the problem. Without the military as a bulwark against Islamic supremacism, freedom of conscience and liberty in general would be doomed."

But, as McCarthy notes, Europe will have none of it, arrogantly insisting that history is flowing irresistibly towards European-style secular humanism and Western-style democracy.

To summarise: European elites don't actually want Turkey in the EU. But rather than stand accused of Islamophobia, they hold out the promise of integration, as soon as Turkey reaches the unreachable state of "reformed". Meanwhile, Erdogan ,who has nothing but Islamist contempt for the West and would not join the EU unless it was to dominate it, "continues to leverage this European pressure for Turkish reform because it serves the Islamist cause of weakening the Turkish military and breaking Atatürk's shackles on supremacist Islam — all under the ironic guise of promoting 'religious liberty'."

See: Why Turkey Will Never Join the EU 
By Andrew C. McCarthy
National Review Online, 29 Sept 2010.

ERGENEKON

One of the most significant scams Erodgan has pulled off, enabling him to repress and persecute all opposition while still impressing the Europeans, has been the Ergenekon investigation.

Supposedly created to prosecute members of a "Deep State" conspiracy, the Ergenekon investigation has been used to harass, persecute and silence opposition, particularly those associated with the Constitutional Court and the Military.

Hundreds of Turks -- including journalists, academics, geriatric authors, transsexual actors etc as well as Kemalist politicians, Generals and judges -- have been detained without charge and without evidence, for no other apparent reason than they expressed opposition to Erdogan's pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - AKP) or to the Islamisation of Turkey in general.

The AKP also exploits the Ergenekon investigation as a means to shift the blame for every act of Islamic religious hatred or terrorism on to secularists. "It goes without saying that a disinformation campaign which holds Ergenekon ultimately responsible for all the violence previously attributed to Islamist groups is unlikely to encourage those who are best-placed to identify potential Islamist terrorists to be more vigilant." (Jenkins, Terrorism Monitor, 3 Oct 2008)

In a parallel case code-named "Sledgehammer", more than 300 active and retired military officers were recently sentenced to prison terms on charges relating to an alleged conspiracy to overthrow the government. Bill Park, a senior lecturer who specialises in Turkish foreign and security policy at King's College, London, comments that as a worst case scenario, "Kemalist/secularist officers are now more generally purged as part of an Islamist long march through Turkey's institutions".

Ergenekon -- Recommended reading:

Turkey's New Islamism
By David Pryce-Jones, National Review Online, 27 Sept 2012

Erdogan, Ergenekon, and the Struggle for Turkey
By Michael Rubin, Middle East Forum, 8 Aug 2008.

Between Fact and Fantasy: Turkey's Ergenekon Investigation
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Silk Road Studies Program
Silk Road Paper,  by Gareth H. Jenkins, August 2009.

The Impact of the Ergenekon Investigation on Turkish Counterterrorism Operations
Jamestown, Terrorism Monitor, Volume: 6 Issue: 19
By Gareth Jenkins, 3 October 2008

includes Sledgehammer 

ERGENEKON, SLEDGEHAMMER, AND THE POLITICS OF TURKISH JUSTICE: CONSPIRACIES AND COINCIDENCES
GLORIA Centre, Global Research in International Affairs.
By Gareth Jenkins, 29 August 2011

The Ergenekon investigation gets out of control
Caspian Intelligence, 10 January 2012

Turkey's Sledgehammer Coup verdict: justice or Soviet-style show trial?
Turkish court's jailing of hundreds of military officers over Erdogan coup plot revives fears of return to authoritarian rule.
By Simon Tisdall, for the Guardian, 25 September 2012

Turkey’s Massive Military Trial Opens Old Wounds and New Anxieties
Claims of procedural and evidentiary anomalies in a huge trial of coup plotters raise criticism of the Erdogan administration. Is the Prime Minister trying too hard to bury the military — and Turkish secularism?
By Pelin Turgut in Istanbul for TIME, 24 Sept 2012

Hundreds Convicted in Turkish Coup Trial
By EMRE PEKER, Wall Street Journal
21 September 2012.

The Ergenekon and Sledgehammer investigations are not the only show trial campaigns being waged against those who oppose Erdogan, the AKP and/or Islamisation.

In a trial that has been dubbed the KCK case, "193 men and women are being judged on charges of 'membership in an illegal organization', legalese for 'terrorism'. The defendants were arrested for either teaching or taking classes at academies set up by the BDP, the Peace and Democracy Party, a liberal coalition political party dominated by the Kurdish minority and dedicated to establishing equality for all of Turkey's minorities. According to the ruling AK Party under Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan, participation in any form at these academies -- even the tea servers were arrested -- meant membership in the KCK, the urban branch of the Kurdish guerrilla movement.

"Among these supposed trainers of Kurdish terrorists in the mountains are also non-Kurds, such as Ragip Zarakolu, a publisher and Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Busra Ersanli, a professor of political science. Authorities have charged the aged and infirm as well, including Zekiye Ayik, an elderly woman who never learned to read or write, and Muhsin Yenisöz, a man who has to be frequently hospitalized for heart disease. These four, due to significant outside pressure, were released on bond at the end of the first phase of the trial in July, but are still being tried. Most of the defendants remain in prison, including my 60 year old father-in-law, Kemal Seven, a former elementary school teacher and instructor at the academies."

From: Turkey's Treacherous Show Trials
By Jeffrey Wade Gibbs, for Gatestone Institute. 1 October 2012
Gibbs is an American writer and teacher who has been living in Istanbul for five years.

None of this bodes well for religious freedom or for the Church in Turkey. Incredibly though, it is all being done in the name of religious liberty and democracy, to cheers and congratulations from the West.

It is a travesty that the European Parliament has supported these clearly political investigations which do nothing to advance democracy or liberty but plenty to advance totalitarianism, Islamisation and a climate of fear.

UK: religious liberty fading fast

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 027 | Wed 21 Oct 2009

UNITED KINGDOM: RELIGIOUS LIBERTY FADING FAST

In London, England, in the 1370s, John Wycliffe suffered intensive persecution for daring to protest for biblical truth. In 1415 John Hus was burnt at the stake in Prague, Bohemia, for doing the same. On 31 October 1517 a German monk named Martin Luther risked martyrdom and worse -- the Inquisition -- when he launched his protest for biblical truth: salvation by grace through faith, not merited by works. He sought reform but got division, and the Protestant Church was born. Religious liberty and the revival of biblical theology brought many positive consequences to the societies that embraced it. As a result, 31 October has traditionally been remembered as Reformation Day. But as Protestant prosperity grew, so too did the rot of pride and arrogance. Before long, Protestant societies were not only forgetting God and the truths that gave liberty to their positive energies and made them great, but 'in pride and arrogance of heart' (Isaiah 9:9b) were rejecting God and his word as irrelevant.

British MP William Wilberforce (1759-1833), though remembered primarily as an abolitionist, was passionate about Britain's need for spiritual reformation as it was in a state of advanced decay. Not only had the nation largely forgotten God but its church had mostly returned to a works-based theology, believing that people merited salvation because they were 'good' -- not that people were good because they were saved by grace through faith. (See William Wilberforce, A Practical View of Christianity, chapter 3.)

The awakening and spiritual reform that Wilberforce launched turned the tide in the UK. But today nearly 500 years on from Luther and some 250 years on from Wilberforce, the UK is in trouble again and is desperately in need of a fresh awakening. Moreover religious liberty is fading fast.

All Nations Church in Kennington, South London, was recently ordered not to use its sound system for its sermons or music so as to avoid offending its (Muslim) neighbours. A Christian office worker from South London, Denise Haye (25), was recently sacked for expressing her disapproval of homosexuality. A Christian nurse from Exeter, Shirley Chaplin (54), was recently threatened with disciplinary action after she refused to remove the cross from her necklace that she had worn without a complaint throughout 30 years of nursing. A Deputy Registrar with Islington Borough Council, Theresa Davies (59), was demoted because she refused to preside over same-sex civil partnership ceremonies. A Christian nurse with 40 years' experience, Anand Rao (71), was sacked after he suggested to a training seminar that distressed palliative care patients could try going to church. A Christian community nurse and professional foster mother (with 80 children's-worth of experience) was recently struck off the register for failing to prevent a 16-year-old Muslim girl converting to Christianity. A Christian homelessness prevention officer with 18 years' experience, Duke Amachree (53), was sacked by Wandsworth Council for sharing his faith with a client who had lost hope. Revd Noble Samuel of Heston United Reformed Church, West London, who debates Muslims on his TV Gospel program, was hijacked in his car by three Urdu-speaking assailants who grabbed him by the hair, ripped off his cross and threatened to break his legs if he continued broadcasting. These cases (all in 2009) are just the tip of the iceberg. If the Equality Bill that is now making its way through parliament passes (as expected), then persecution will increase dramatically.

(For the above cases see http://www.christianlegalcentre.com http://www.ccfon.org
http://www.christian.org.uk )

While Christians are being silenced, Islamisation is advancing, with Islamic fundamentalists appeased at every turn by short-sighted politicians who lack political courage and hanker after political gain. While Christians are fined, sacked and sued for expressing their faith, Anjem Choudary's Islam4UK is free to run its Islamic Roadshows all across the country . Independent think-tank Civitas recently reported that Britain already has some 85 Sharia Courts operating openly, advising illegal actions and transgressing human rights with impunity. Not content with this, some 5000 supporters of Islam4UK are expected to join a 'March for Sharia' from the House of Commons to Trafalgar Square on 31 October, which coincidentally is Reformation Day.

(An example of Islam4UK's Islamic Roadshow in action {Birmingham, June 2009} )

As long as the various anti-Christian lobby groups can silence Christians and shut down debate through anti-defamation, anti-vilification and anti-discrimination laws along with threats of violence, they will be on a winning trajectory with little resistance -- that is, until violent conflict erupts. Violent 'race' clashes are already on the increase, mostly in response to protests against Islamisation. The UK is in trouble.


PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT:

* God will greatly bless those Christians who are courageously defending gospel truths and values in the UK's courts and streets, that they will have abundant grace, wisdom and boldness from the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 10:16-20,38,39)

* as Muslims 'March for Sharia' on 31 October -- Reformation Day -- British Christians will remember the courage of Martin Luther and be motivated by the heritage they have in Wycliffe, Ridley, Wilberforce, Carey and others.

* revival will come to the UK Church so that the nation's Christians will step out boldly with gospel truths and values, being prepared to suffer and, in Wilberforce's words, 'be wholly indebted' to the God of grace for everything.

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. (v29 of Isaiah 40:28-31 ESV)

INDONESIA: ISLAMISATION AND POLARISATION

Date: Tuesday 16 December 2008
Subj: Indonesia: Islamisation and Polarisation
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal


INDONESIA: ISLAMISATION AND POLARISATION
-- religious freedom-related violence increasing
-- President enacts anti-pornography bill

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM-RELATED VIOLENCE INCREASING

The Jakarta Post reports: "Religious violence is on the rise in the world's largest Muslim country according to a report by the Wahid Institute http://www.wahidinstitute.org/ , which places the blame on the government for its failing to crack down on radical groups.

"The institute, a moderate Islamic think tank founded by former president Abdurrahman 'Gus Dur' Wahid to promote pluralism in Indonesia, reported that religious freedom-related violence had increased throughout the country, with 232 cases reported this year compared to 197 last year.

"Many of the incidences of violence were perpetrated by state authorities, according to the annual report released on Human Rights Day, Wednesday [10 Dec].

"'The acts of violence against religious freedom were 60 percent carried out by civilian groups and 33 percent by the state,' the report said.

"It said the state perpetrators included local administrations, police, legislators, courts and the Religious Affairs Ministry.

"Civilian perpetrators were identified as members of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and the Communications Forum for Religious Harmony.

"The frequency and severity of the violence increased from last year, the report said. It noted that the government had been weak in administering punishment, which it said set a worrisome trend for the future.

"The institute said violations against religious freedom had come in the form of physical attacks, raids, destruction of houses of worship and accusations of apostasy and heresy . . . " (Link 1)

SBY ENACTS ANTI-PORN BILL

On 26 November 2008, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) enacted a controversial anti-pornography law. Yudhoyono's special staff for legal affairs Denny Indrayana told The Jakarta Post: "It becomes Law No. 44/2008 on anti-pornography. The President signed it because it was already a national consensus." (Link 2)

Indrayana's statement is misleading on two counts: the law is not about pornography as much as it about Islamisation; and there is no national consensus.

The anti-pornography law was pushed through parliament in October by conservative Muslim parties including the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and the Crescent Star Party (or PBB). It passed in the legislature on 30 October to cries of "Allahu Akbar" (God is great). (Link 3)

Many analysts believe that SBY's enactment of the law is pure electioneering aimed at of securing the support of the Islamic parties ahead of the 2009 presidential elections. However, by this action he is also polarising the electorate and feeding regional instability.

The anti-pornography law is both staggeringly broad and hopelessly vague. Furthermore, as the law encourages citizens to report offences to police, there are concerns that Islamic vigilantes will seek to enforce its standards.

Indonesia's legislative elections are slated for April 2009, with the presidential election to be held three months later in July. Once again we are observing that oft-forgotten factor in multi-party politics: no party is as powerful as the one holding the balance of power, especially if that party also has the power to destabilise the State and bring down an elected government through the mobilisation of demonstrations, riots, crippling strikes and even sectarian conflict.

LAW No. 44/2008 ON ANTI-PORNOGRAPHY

The journal "Inside Indonesia" has published an excellent analysis of the anti-pornography law entitled "A law on pornography still divides the community", by Helen Pausacker, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne's Law School. (Link 4)

Pausacker tracks the progress of the law from when it first emerged in the 1990s as the Anti-Pornography and Porno-Action Bill only to lie dormant until 2005-06 when it was revived and hotly debated before the strength of outcry against it led to it being withdrawn.

Pausacker writes: "The bill that was proposed in 2005-06 would not just have criminalised hard pornography. It would also have made illegal many kinds of theatre and dance performances, art, forms of dress (such as baring the shoulders and legs) and behaviour of individuals (such as kissing on the lips in public), displaying 'sensual parts' of the body or 'erotic dancing'. 'Sensual parts' of the body were specifically defined in Article 4 of the Elucidation of the 2005-06 version of the bill as 'the genitals, thighs, hips, buttocks, navel and female breasts, whether in whole or in part'."

Clearly such a bill would trigger chaos in a state as diverse as Indonesia, where mature tribal Javanese and Melanesian women still go around bare breasted; Balinese women dance -- some may say erotically -- with navels showing; many Papuan men wear only penis-gourds; and many progressive Indonesians as well as tourists from all over the world enjoy wearing shorts, singlet-tops and even bikinis on the beaches. Furthermore, the proposed penalties were to be harsh, with hefty fines and lengthy prison terms.

Pausacker continues: "Two years later, in September 2008, legislators introduced a revised version of the bill to the legislature (DPR), with some of them hoping that it would be passed quickly. The outcry was again great -- five thousand people demonstrated in Bali and there were demonstrations in Yogyakarta. . . . However, despite the strong views expressed both in favour of and against the bill, it was eventually passed on 30 October 2008.

"When it became clear that there were sufficient numbers in the legislature to pass the bill, two parties -- Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDIP) and the nationalist, Christian party, the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS) -- walked out of the debate in protest. Regional loyalty was also so strong that two Balinese legislators from Golkar, Lisnawati Karna and Gede Sumarjaya Linggih, walked out when Golkar stated its approval of the bill. . . . The 30 October version of the bill was ratified by the president on 26 November as Law No. 44 of 2008 on Pornography, with no substantial changes."

Pausacker's article describes the revisions made to the 2005-06 bill which subsequently passed in October 2008. She notes that while the bill has been substantially shortened it has not been watered down -- rather it has been made less specific leaving the interpretation open to the courts.

"The definition of 'pornography' in the 30 October 2008 version passed by the DPR and the final law is vague enough to include some 'pornographic actions'. It states: 'pornography is pictures, sketches, illustrations, photos, writing, voice, sound, moving pictures, animation, cartoons, conversations, movements of the body, or other forms through a variety of communication media and/or performances in public which contain obscenity or sexual exploitation which violates the moral norms in society' (Article 1)."

Pausacker also explains that the penultimate (September 2008) version of the bill protected cultural expression by making it clear that exceptions would be made for regional interests so that their local customs would not be interpreted as pornographic.

However, Pausacker continues, "This article is missing from the final law. Instead, the law includes the following statement at the beginning: 'This Law aims to: […] respect, protect and preserve the artistic and cultural values, [regional] cultural practices and religious rituals of the pluralistic Indonesian society' (Article 3b). There is no clear statement of exceptions, except for the vague phrase in Article 13(1) of the Elucidation that the definition of what is pornography also depends on the context, stating that in specific contexts, a photo of a model wearing a bikini, bathers or beachwear would not be seen as pornographic.

"The emphasis of the earlier versions and the final version were quite different. The earlier versions suggested that exceptions would be made for particular regions and customs when judging an accusation of pornography. The final law suggests that regional views have already been taken into account in the drafting of the law, where in fact the contrary is the case: the final version provides the least clear protection of regional interests."

This is why regions such as Hindu-populated Bali, as well as Papua and other Christian-populated regions such as North Sulawesi have protested so strongly.

Hostility, tensions and conflict are likely to escalate not only from regions, but within them. Pausacker notes that in Bali, the Governor and former police general, Made Mangku Pastika and speaker of the Balinese Regional Peoples Representative Council (DPRD), Ida Bagus Putu Wesnawa, have voiced their opposition to the bill and stated their intention to not implement it. Meanwhile, Bali's Chief Inspector of Police, General Teuku Ashikin Husein (who, Pausacker notes, is not Balinese, and has previously worked in Aceh and Southeast Sulawesi) has issued a public statement that the law was 'positive' and that his office would be enforcing it. (See also link 5.)

This scenario also opens the door for extortion and police corruption.

In Muslim-majority areas there is a particular danger of talibanisation and Islamic vigilantism. This danger is fuelled not only by the zeal generated by the legitimisation of Islamic demands, but from the law itself which states, in Article 21(1), that members of the community have the right to report infringements.

Pausacker notes: "The Elucidation to Article 21(1) specifically states 'that the community is not to perform acts which take the law into their own hands, acts of violence, raids (sweeping), or other acts which are against the law'. Despite this Elucidation (which both members of the general public and vigilante groups will often not read) some critics have expressed concern that vigilante groups will try to enforce the law themselves. [. . .] Critics of the law are right to feel concerned because for years violent raids by vigilante groups on bars or brothels in the fasting month have gone unchecked by police."

Ifdal Kassim, chairman of the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM), said the law, which would invade people's privacy, could trigger human rights violations and will create disharmony among the people. (Link 6)

Surpiyadi Widodo Eddyono, the legal services coordinator for the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam) also raised concerns. "Some articles are not for the protection of human rights. There are loopholes that could be misinterpreted."
According to The Jakarta Post, he is encouraging activists to petition the Constitutional Court for a judicial review of the law. (Link 6)

Sidney Jones, head of the South-east Asia section of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group comments: "The bill goes deep into the Muslim mainstream. There is an increasing push from some Muslim groups and some Muslim parties to give the state a greater role in legislating morality."

According to Jones, this trend is even taking root in the country's large secular parties like Golkar, which threw its weight behind the anti-pornography bill. "'There has been a kind of Islamisation of Golkar,' Jones revealed. 'The political parties are under pressure from an active civil society movement on the Muslim right.'" (Link 7)

According to opposition lawmaker Eva Sundari, who voted against the law in parliament, "The goal of this law is to become a legal umbrella for groups pushing for Sharia [Islamic law]." (Link 8)

So now as we head towards the 2009 elections, not only have pro-Sharia Islamic fundamentalists been further empowered and emboldened, but a situation has been created where any racist or Islamic fundamentalist police officer or vigilante-Islamic-morals-enforcer in (for example) Melanesian-Christian Papua will be able to exploit the anti-pornography law in order to persecute and/or extort any member of the local community who does not submit to the Islamised standard.

Such violent and repressive Islamic cultural imperialism should have no place in a diverse, pluralist, progressive, secular state.

By Elizabeth Kendal

Links

1) Cases of religious violence up: Report
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, 11 Dec 2008
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/12/11/cases-religious-violence-report.html

2) SBY signs porn law, protesters despair
By Abdul Khalik, Jakarta, 9 Dec 2008
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/12/09/sby-signs-porn-law-protesters-despair.html

3) Indonesian parliament passes anti-porn bill. 30 Oct 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE49T3M020081030?sp=true

4) HOT DEBATES.
A law on pornography still divides the community.
By Helen Pausacker, 15 Dec 2008
http://insideindonesia.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1153&Itemid=47

5) Bali police will enforce pornography law: Chief
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, 10 Nov 2008
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/11/10/bali-police-will-enforce-pornography-law-chief.html

6) Porn law casts a shadow over human rights
Indah Setiawati and Ni Komang Erviani, Jakarta, Denpasar, 10 Dec 2008
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/12/10/porn-law-casts-a-shadow-over-human-rights.html

7) Culture-Indonesia: Anti-Porn Law Reveals Growing Islamist Power
By Marwaan Macan-Markar. Inter Press Service.
http://globalgeopolitics.net/wordpress/2008/11/20/culture-indonesia-anti-porn-law-reveals-growing-islamist-power/#more-1849

8) Indonesian anti-porn law cramps Papuans' style
By Aubrey Belford, AFP, Kurulu, Indonesia, 10 Dec 2008
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2008/12/10/2003430754

THE BATTLE FOR INDONESIA

Date: Saturday 6 September 2008
Subj: Indonesia: The Battle for Indonesia
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal


While the president is empowering and appeasing Islamists for personal political gain, the new Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court is courageously striking out against unconstitutional Sharia bylaws. The battle for Indonesia is heating up and the 2009 elections could prove decisive.

THE PRESIDENT

To win, exercise and maintain power, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is dependent on Islamic parties with whom he has entered into alliances and/or made quid pro quo deals. Consequentially, Islamisation and polarisation are advancing in Indonesia and religious liberty is suffering. The situation is similar to what occurred in Pakistan under Musharraf. However in Pakistan Musharraf made the MMA (a coalition of six Islamist parties) powerful through gerrymandering and poll rigging whilst in Indonesia the Prosperous Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) an Islamist party) has become powerful and influential through its genuine grassroots popularity, achieved by strategy and sheer hard work. The result is the same though: the president is dependent on Islamist support, a situation pragmatic Islamists are only too willing to exploit. Indeed, the more the president needs the Islamists, the more they can demand of him. They have already forced the banning of Ahmadiyya teachings and the closure of numerous Christian churches and institutions, including the 1,400-student Arastamar Evangelical School of Theology in East Jakarta. (Link 1)

THE CHIEF JUSTICE

Meanwhile, on Friday 22 August Indonesia's newly elected Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Mohammad Mahfud MD, called for the scrapping of Sharia-based bylaws because they discriminate against minority groups and thus run counter to the constitution and state ideology of Pancasila, which among other things promotes secularism and equity. Mahfud told a gathering of top military officers, "Sharia bylaws are not constitutionally or legally correct because, territorially and ideologically, they threaten our national integrity." A new body will be created to review all regional bylaws, with the recommendation that those deemed unconstitutional be revoked. (Link 2)

----------------------------------------------------
THE BATTLE FOR INDONESIA
----------------------------------------------------

In September 2004 Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) became Indonesia's first directly elected president when he won the presidential election in a second round run-off against Megawati Sukarnoputri of the Indonesian Democratic Party – Struggle (PDI-P). He managed to win even though his party, the Democratic Party, is very small. (The Democratic Party was created in September 2001 with the sole purpose of nominating SBY for the presidency.)

After the first round of voting in July 2004, Megawati, whose secular PDI-P was the second largest party in the legislature, built a coalition that included Golkar (the largest party) as well as several other significant parties. Even though SBY had secured Golkar's Jusuf Kalla (a Muslim nationalist more than a secular nationalist) as his running mate, SBY still required the support of every Islamic party he could find if he were win the presidency. SBY went into the run-off backed by a coalition that included the three largest Islamic parties: the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)-sponsored National Awakening Party (PKB), the radical Islamist (of Muslim Brotherhood origins) Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), and the Muhammadiyah-founded National Mandate Party (PAN). No doubt SBY also benefited from the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) June 2004 fatwa that declared it haram (forbidden by Islam) to elect a woman as president.

SBY may have been the president, but inside the legislature he struggled to get his policies passed against PDI-P and Golkar opposition, that is until VP Jusuf Kalla was made chairman of Golkar and the Saudi-educated Islamist Nur Wahid, the founder and then chairman of the PKS, was made the Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly.

Democracy came to Indonesia in 1998, at the height of the global Islamic revival. Now a decade later, while pro-jihadist, terror-perpetrating Islamic groups have been largely subdued, political Islam has been thriving. Many in the West regard this not as a challenge to but as a victory for Indonesian democracy. But this is because they fail to see that groups like the jihadist Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and the political PKS differ only in methods, not in goals. The threat posed by political Islam is profound. As Sadanand Dhume notes, while JI believes in bombs and is revolutionary, PKS believes in protests and polls and is evolutionary, yet both groups have the creation of an Islamic Caliphate as their ultimate goal. JI might get all the headlines but the PKS has positioned itself in parliament and quietly matastasised.

(For a comprehensive analysis of the rise of political Islam in Indonesia, in particular the phenomenal rise of the PKS, SBY's indispensable ally, see:
"Radicals March on Indonesia's Future" By Sadanand Dhume
Far Eastern Economic Review, 15 May 2005
(Sadanand Dhume's site contains numerous insightful articles on Indonesia.)
A shortened version of this article can be found at YaleGlobal:
"Radical Islamic party threatens Indonesia with ballots more than bullets"

Sadanand Dhume is a Washington-based journalist. He served as India bureau chief and an Indonesia correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review and The Wall Street Journal Asia. He is an Associate Fellow of the Asia Society, a non-partisan, non-profit educational institution that strives at "preparing Asians and Americans for a shared future". "My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist", his book which charts the rise of radical Islam in Indonesia, was recently published by Text Publishing in Australia.)

Dhume writes (2005): "Less than a decade ago, Indonesia appeared likely to evolve as a Muslim version of Thailand -- culturally self-confident, economically dynamic, comfortable with both an ancient past and a modern future. Today the odds favour an Indonesia that looks more like a South-east Asian Pakistan -- culturally confused, economically stagnant, caught between a modern elite and medieval clerics, a recipient of foreign aid rather than foreign investment.

"Needless to say, the Justice Party is not the only hard-line Islamist group in Indonesia. But because it's easily the most powerful, its success or failure will be the most reliable bellwether of Islamic extremism in the country."

As Dhume notes, the PKS has little chance of gaining a majority before 2014. But the PKS does not need a majority to get hold of the reins. They only need to pragmatically position themselves so that those in power are dependent on them.

Dhume's 2005 article concludes: "The party [PKS] faces an internal challenge. It needs to reach out to new supporters while maintaining both discipline and ideological coherence. This means devising ways to satisfy cadres without alienating less committed voters. Expect more anti-Israel demonstrations in front of the US Embassy."

However Israel does not appear to be the PKS's chosen subject around which to rally support and garner recruits. It appears the Islamists have chosen a subject much more tangible and closer to home: the "threat" to Islam caused by the growth of Christianity and the "offence" to Islam caused by those deemed heterodox, such as Ahmadiyya, and unIslamic, such as everything progressive, Western and secular.

As Indonesia heads towards the 2009 presidential elections, SBY is even more dependent on the Islamic parties than ever as VP Jusuf Kalla has become extremely powerful in his own right. Furthermore, Golkar and PDI-P are considering forming a strategic alliance to contest the 2009 polls. (Link 3)

If a Golkar - PDI-P alliance eventuates, SBY to stay in power will be left with little option but to use the increasingly visible, vocal, popular and influential PKS as his powerbase. It is important to note that while Golkar and PDI-P are clearly the largest parties in the legislature their combined weight only just matches that of the combined weight of the numerous smaller parties in the Islamic bloc.

Should Golkar and PDI-P form an alliance and win the presidential elections, then, if there is enough courage and conviction, the Islamists can be reined in and marginalised. However if a Golkar - PDI-P alliance loses to the Islamic bloc, or if Golkar and PDI-P go their separate ways each seeking the support of Islamic parties, then the Islamists will be ascendant. The 2009 polls are thus hugely significant in the battle for Indonesia.

Elizabeth Kendal

Links

1) Indonesia: Religious Liberty, Polarisation and Danger
WEA RLC News & Analysis, 20 June 2008
By WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal

Indonesian Christian campus attack
Straits Times Asia 
The Arastamar Evangelical School of Theology has reluctantly agreed to shut its 20-year-old campus in east Jakarta after a violent Islamic pogrom in July, launched from a nearby mosque to cries of "Allah Akbar" (God is great) with the stated aim of forcing the school's closure, left 1,400-students displaced and 18 wounded.
"The government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which relies on the support of Islamic parties in Parliament, is struggling to balance deep Islamic traditions and a secular constitution. With elections coming next April, the government seems unwilling to defend religious minorities, lest it be portrayed as anti-Islamic in what is the world's most populous Muslim-majority country."

2) New court head slams sharia bylaws
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, 23 August 2008
"Less than 24 hours after being sworn in as the new head of the Constitutional Court, Moh. Mahfud MD on Friday slammed regional administrations for enacting sharia-inspired bylaws. . ."

Sharia bylaws illogical, unnecessary: Experts
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 08/25/2008 11:14 AM | Headlines
"The enforcement of many sharia-based ordinances in the country has been denounced by several legal experts as a violation of basic human rights. . ."

Letters to the editor on Mafud's anti-sharia statement

3) Top Golkar, PDIP figures raise possibility of coalition. 25 August 2008
Golkar to Team Up With Megawati, 26 August 2008