Graphic video of alleged torture by Indonesian forces | Asia | Deutsche Welle | 19.10.2010:

"The video is in two parts, a representative of the group told the Reuters news agency by phone. The first part shows military officers in uniform hitting and kicking some villagers in an effort to get the names of separatists. The second part shows two people being tortured, one with a knife at his neck, while in another scene, an interrogator apparently tries to burn the other man's penis with a burning stick. - The Associated Press news agency reports that the body of one of the victims was reportedly found near a river soon after the torture. The other victim had not been traced.

Police in Papua have questioned the authenticity of the video, while the Indonesian military chief, Agus Suhartono, said that the military would conduct an investigation. The military maintains a strong presence in Papua. The Papua police force is known to torture and abuse detainees. Similar allegations against the Indonesian police in the eastern province of Maluku were raised by the Australian media last month. Kopassus, the Indonesian special forces unit, is alleged to be responsible for the worst abuses. US-based Human Rights Watch has reported indiscriminate sweeps by Indonesian forces in West Papua."

A Christian protestant church, GKI Taman Yasmin in the regency of Bogor, Indonesia was forced to cease activities by Bogor's regency on Sunday night. The police and Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) surrounded the church, disbanded a church meeting, then sealed the building by the city's order.

The Public Order Agency's main purpose is to help the police and local government maintain public order. However, given the rather militaristic and sudden action, some fear the church closing is actually inspired by a broader Islamist campaign against Christians and church groups in the Muslim majority nation. Last week, two church leaders were stabbed in Bekasi Regency, on the eastern border of the capital city, Jakarta.

...The church building permit was first revoked by the Bogor Administrative government on February 14, 2008, two years after the issuance of their permit. The administrative government cited public disturbance as an excuse to close down the place of worship. However, the court of justice overturned the Bogor administration's decision, and the church was reopened August 27 only to be re-closed a few days after.

Hillary Clinton praised Indonesia for the "protection of individuals' professing different religions". Very timely.

Source.

Background:
Indonesia: Court upholds blasphemy law.
Indonesia: Muslim leader arrested in anti-Christian attack.
Indonesian cleric comes to Europe to give voice to "great silent majority" of peace-loving Muslims.
"Homosexuality is an abuse of Human Rights", top Muslim body says.

For being linked with yet another terrorist cell. Radical Muslim preacher linked to Bali arrested in Indonesia - Telegraph:

Dozens of Islamic hard-liners protested against an international gay film festival in Indonesia's capital Tuesday, forcing the cancellation of several screenings. 

The Q! Film Festival, being held at foreign cultural centres in Jakarta, opened last week and was slated to run until Wednesday night. In its ninth year, it aims to raise awareness of gay issues. 

Members of the hardline Islamic Defenders Front — some wearing masks, white robes and turbans — chanted anti-gay slogans and said the movies were blasphemous. 

Showings at the Goethe Institute of Germany, which was being guarded by police, would not be disrupted, said Dinyah Latuconsina, the centre's program assistant. 

But the French Cultural Center and Japan Foundation decided to halt remaining screenings.

Related: Study finds rising intolerance among Indonesian Muslims @ Jakarta Globe.

VOA NEWS:

A prestigious Indonesian Islamic theologian is traveling to Europe to promote the country's tolerant, pluralist interpretation of Islam and counter the violent ideology of radical extremists. The tour is organized by groups that promote pluralism and is part of a plan to develop a network of Muslim leaders to give voice to what they call the "great silent majority" of peace-loving Muslims.
Kyai Haji Achmad Mustofa Bisri, an influential Islamic cleric and member of the supreme council of Nahdlatul Ulama, an Indonesian Muslim organization with 40 million members, has preached tolerance and moderation for over 30 years. Now he has agreed to travel to Europe to help reconcile what he describes as growing animosity between Muslims and Christians there.
He says his perception of the world that we live in is that it is like very dry grass that is easy to catch fire and burn.
Islam, the cleric says, is a religion that promotes love, peace and tolerance.
He says if one misreads the message of love to give rise to hatred, then clearly there is a failure to understand.
And Bisri says that both Islamic extremists and those who hate Muslims share the misguided view that Islam sanctions violence.

I wonder where people have learned that "misunderstanding" from... And, wouldn't it be more practical if they would just convince violent Islamic guys of this "loving and peaceful nature of Islam"?

Image via Wikipedia. Flowers outside Australian embassy in Jakarta, days after the 2004 bombings.

Six years after the Australian Embassy bombing in Jakarta, the two militants on death row for the attack say they have no remorse and they are ready to die as “mujahideens.”

Iwan “Rois” Dharmawan Muntho and Achmad Hasan were among six people jailed for helping to plan the Sept. 9, 2004, bombing that killed nine people and wounded 150.

In an exclusive interview with the Jakarta Globe at their prison on Nusakambangan Island in Central Java, Rois and Hasan said that the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad legitimized the attack.

“Why should we apologize if we believe that we did right in waging jihad [holy war] against the infidels?” Rois said. “Why must we show any remorse?”

He said it was “legitimate to attack Australian interests worldwide” because of Canberra’s close ties to Washington and its “targeting of Muslims.”

They are clear enought, aren't they?

Indonesian police confirmed that Muharli Barda, the notorious leader of the Islamic Defender Front (FPI) in Bekasi, has been detained for his role in an anti-Christian incident that occurred on 12 September. Police also said that nine other people were involved, but did not disclose their names.

The incident in question occurred last Sunday when a Protestant clergyman, Rev Afian Sihombing, was attacked. He is the head of a Christian community in East Pondonk Bekasi Regency. He is currently in hospital with multiple stab wounds to the stomach. Rev Luspida Simanjutak was also injured during the attack, with wounds to the face, head and back. She and Rev Sihombing lead the Huria Batak Kristen Protestan (HBKP).

After initially taking a guarded position, police became more involved following a statement by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who said that Christians should have justice.

“There are ten suspects,” Police Chief General Bambang Hendarso Danuri announced. He declined however to give any further comments.

The government needed to reflect on a series of failures exposed by the extremists' recent activities, including poor intelligence and corruption.

"For all the progress that has been made in the last decade in understanding extremist networks and sharing information across the region about them, the ability to detect their activities remains weak," it said.

"That Dulmatin, one of the region's most wanted terrorists, could leave the Philippines, arrive in Indonesia and live in Jakarta for at least two years without anyone being the wiser suggests that there is still some way to go in improving basic information gathering and analysis."

Dulmatin, a bomb-making expert and one of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings which killed more than 200 people, had "no difficulty getting a fake local identification card and passport," it said.

The Aceh group had also used "corrupt police contacts to buy supposedly destroyed weapons... (illustrating) yet again how corruption becomes the lubricant for terrorist activities".

In the past, experts have also told the Govt to control closely Islamic schools, because they are a very important place of radicalization. They have also denounced the lack of control over "Islamist ideology".

Dulmatin, the mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings, was shot dead in an internet café in Jakarta, Indonesia last March 9th.

Indonesia's constitutional court upheld a controversial blasphemy law Monday that critics say limits religious freedom in the world's largest Muslim-majority country, ruling that the law is vital to religious harmony.

The 1965 law was challenged by a coalition of rights groups and civil society organizations who consider it discriminatory. But it is supported by religious conservatives, including the radical Islamic Defenders Front, which had gathered at the court and threatened to protest if the judges didn't uphold it.

Although the law recognizes six official religions in the country - the standard forms of Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism - rights activists say it discriminates against minority religions, including Muslims whose beliefs differ from the mainstream.

The vast majority of Indonesia's 235 million people are moderate Sunni Muslims.

Opponents say the law, which carries penalties of up to 5 years in jail and allows the government to ban groups that "distort" the official religions, should be struck down because it limits religious freedom - which is constitutionally protected in this secular country.

This has nothing to do with protecting other religions. Even the Govt defended the blasphemy law because:

The consequences [if the law is annulled] are that people, figures, could establish new religions, declare new prophets, new angels.

Oh, what a problem…

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Another two could have been killed during the "unrest":

Hundreds of residents armed with machetes clashed with security forces using water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets on Wednesday in Jakarta over a plan to renovate an area containing an Islamic scholar's tomb.
The local hospital in Koja, north Jakarta, said it was treating 54 people following the fighting between about 2,000 public order officers and residents, the worst civil disturbances in several years in the Indonesian capital.
....Some of the protesters were supporters of the Islamic Defenders Front, a hardline Muslim group known for attacking bars and nightclubs. Several appeared to be teenagers.
Metro TV said two people died in the unrest but did not cite a source.
The protesters thought the city government was trying to remove the tomb of Habib Hasan, an Islamic scholar who died in the mid-1700s, on land owned by state-owned port company Pelindo II. The Jakarta local government denied it had plans to dismantle the tomb, saying it wanted to renovate it.
"The location (of the clash) is right in front of the main gate, so there is a disruption" of port activities, said Kiki Hikmat, a staff member of Pelindo II. "The container traffic is slower because there are crowds on the street."

Indonesia is a so-called "moderate" country. These guys are "hardline" (that is, they are "far and beyond"-extremists) and really violent. Who goes to a demostration with a machete with other people who also carry machetes?