http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/christians-under-attack-in-indonesia-top-bishop-says/469658 Christians Under Attack in Indonesia, Top Bishop Says October 05, 2011
FPI members protesting in front of a religious minority in Makassar in this file photo. Islamic fundamentalists in Indonesia are attacking Christians with impunity, the head of Indonesian bishops said on Tuesday during a visit to the Vatican. (Antara Photo) Vatican City. Islamic fundamentalists in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, are attacking Christians with impunity, the head of Indonesian bishops said on Tuesday during a visit to the Vatican. “Muslim fanatics are staging violence and denying basic religious freedom and stopping the construction of places of worship and the practice of Christianity,” Martinus Dogma Situmorang told the Vatican’s l’Osservatore Romano daily. “Alas, these incidents are being tolerated or authorities are turning a blind eye without taking any legal action because in their eyes it is less serious even though they were accompanied by violence,” Situmorang said. Indonesia’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion but rights groups say violence against minorities including Christians and the Ahmadiyah Islamic sect has escalated since 2008. In February, a 1,500-strong mob of Muslims set two churches alight and ransacked a third in the town of Temanggung, on Java island, as they demanded that a Christian man be sentenced to death for insulting Islam. Situmorang said even if extremists and radicals behind these attacks were brought to justice, the “punishments accorded are not proportionate to their acts.” He said fanaticism was on the rise but security forces appeared to have got weaker. More than 80 percent of Indonesia’s estimated 240 million people are Muslim. Five percent are Protestants and three percent Catholic. Agence France-Press Related articles Radicalism Losing Ground in Indonesia but Not in Universities: Survey 9:13am Oct 5, 2011 Think-Tank Warns of Tensions in Indonesia’s Malukus 8:33am Oct 5, 2011 Indonesian Officials, Hard-Liners Continue Harassment of Bogor Church 9:37am Oct 3, 2011 Global Islamic Group Hizbut Tahrir Rising in Indonesia, Asia 7:51pm Oct 1, 2011 Police Aware of Terror Threat to Bombed Church 3:24pm Sep 28, 2011 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
