Islam in Asia > The World's most populace Muslim country doubles in hate in 10 years

 

Just-Released Data Confirms Muslim Nations’ Extreme Antisemitism: Prevalence in ‘Moderate’ Indonesia is 96%

The ADL just released, on Tuesday, January 14, 2025, their massive, worldwide assessment (58,000 adults from 103 countries surveyed) of the prevalence of extreme Antisemitism, i.e., defined as agreement with at least 6 of 11 antisemitic stereotypes. 

Sadly, just like 10-years ago in 2014, Muslim nations are the most Antisemitic in the world by wide margins, certainly relative to Western Europe and North America (see tables below). Perhaps the most ominous finding was that since 2014, the prevalence of extreme Antisemitism in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, still touted for its alleged “moderate and tolerant” Islam, doubled from 48% to 96%, the second highest prevalence in the world!

As reported in 2017, this threat, was issued to the barely ~200 Asian descent Jews in Indonesia, the country at that time exhibiting only an average level of extreme Antisemitism (48%) vis-à-vis the world’s Muslims: “We don’t want you to use your kippah in this country [Indonesia]. If you continue to use it, we’ll kill you.”

The 2017 report also warned of “faith-based tension mounting in Indonesia, undermining its pluralist reputation,” successive governments had failed to address for “fear of being accused of attacking Islam.” Although still deemed a “tolerant and moderate” nation, following Indonesia’s 2019 elections, Reuters noted, forebodingly,

Hardline groups that were once on the fringes of Indonesian politics, most notably the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), have increasingly muscled their way into the mainstream and arguably provide a political voice for conservative Indonesian Muslims. The FPI and similar groups call for an Islamic state, with Islamic law for all Muslims in the country. That may be popular with many voters – according to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of Muslims favor making sharia the official law.

ADL’s salient finding that 96% of Indonesians currently harbor extreme Antisemitism, in conjunction with recent prior data on popular (almost ¾) Indonesian longing for Sharia supremacism, and Indonesians’ overt menacing behavior toward the nation’s infinitesimal Jewish population, should put to rest the quixotic canard about “tolerant Indonesian Islam.”

Where is Iran in that list?  Or, is the Iranian government completely out of touch with the people?

Antisemitism is a spiritual disease, that's the only way it makes any sense whatsoever. The degree of antisemitism is somewhat proportional to the degree of godlessness in a country. Godlessness includes the worship of false gods. 

Most antisemites are also antichristian or soon will be. It's the same disease.

This article was cross-posted with the author’s permission from AndrewBostom.org.

Big Pharma - Cough Syrups Laced with antifreeze kill 165 children in Indonesia and the Gambia

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Indonesia bans all syrup medicines after 99 child deaths

By Matt Bernardini

   

Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Indonesia has banned sales of all syrup and liquid medication after 99 children died due to acute kidney injuries this year.

The country's Food and Drug Monitoring Agency said that the suspended medicines were found to contain an ingredient -- ethylene glycol -- in an amount that "exceeds the safe limit."

Ethylene glycol is commonly used to make antifreeze.

Indonesian health officials said they had reported 200 cases of AKI in children, most of whom were under the age of five, according to the BBC.

"Some syrups that were used by AKI child patients under five were proven to contain ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol that were not supposed to be there, or of very little amount," Budi Gunadi Sadikin, Indonesia's Health Minister, said Thursday.

Ethylene glycol, along with diethylene glycol, are typically added as cheap adulterants in propylene glycol, which is used as a solvent in cough syrups. The metabolism of these compounds causes significant liver and kidney damage, according to The Straits Times.

The Gambia

Earlier this month, The World Health Organization issued a global alert over four cough syrups that were linked to the deaths of 66 children in the Gambia.

The organization released the alert for Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup and Magrip N Cold Syrup, all made by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited in Haryana, India.

The WHO said Maiden failed to provide safety guarantees and respond to quality issues surrounding the products.

"Laboratory analysis of samples of each of the four products confirms that they contain unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol as contaminants," the WHO said in a statement.

After the WHO announcement, Maiden was ordered to stop all manufacturing activities.

Indonesian authorities said the cough syrups used in The Gambia were not sold locally.

One epidemiologist said the true death toll could be even higher than reported.

"When cases like these happen, [what we know is] the tip of the iceberg, which means there could be far more victims," Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist from Griffith University told BBC Indonesia.

Indonesian authorities have so far not disclosed the brands or types of syrup medicines linked to sick children - instead just temporarily banning the sale and prescription of all syrup and liquid medicines.

Bits and Bites From Around the World > Swiss Minister Visits Mannequins; Pr William Criticises Billionaires; British Support for Massacre of Millions

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Apparently, he's lecturing them on how the government has everything in control.

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‘Robbing from our children’s future’: Prince William criticises

billionaires for space ventures, says they take focus off Earth

14 Oct, 2021 10:21

(L) © REUTERS / Joe Skipper; (C) © REUTERS / Mike Blake; (R) © REUTERS / Henry Nicholls

In a rare moment of almost open reproval coming from a British royal, the Duke of Cambridge appeared to criticise entrepreneurs involved in commercial space projects, saying humanity needs to “repair this planet” first.

Environmental issues should become a priority for the people living on Earth, be it younger generations or those who have already achieved a lot and are now investing their money and efforts in space ventures, Prince William has said. 

“We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live,” he pointed out during an interview broadcast on BBC on Thursday.

In a thinly veiled reprimand of Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos – the latter of whom just sent 90-year-old ‘Star Trek’ actor William Shatner into space – Prince William said that he himself has “absolutely no interest” in heading above the clouds.

The carbon cost of space flights is a “fundamental question,” the British royal said. He added that those who have both intellectual and financial resources should invest in environmental efforts “rather than giving up and heading out into space to try and think of solutions for the future.” Otherwise, there will be no playing outdoors for coming generations, whose “futures are basically threatened the whole time,” the father-of-three suggested.

“If we’re not careful, we’re robbing from our children’s future through what we do now,” he said, adding, “I think that’s not fair.”

The prince’s comments drew a range of reactions on social media. While some praised him for “talking common sense” and highlighting the “money wasted” on space projects, others suggested that somebody “living off the taxpayers money” was not in any place to criticise private initiatives.

Caring for our planet and space travel “are not mutually exclusive,” some commentators said, pointing out that space exploration “could develop technology that benefits us here on Earth.”

Prince William also praised his father Prince Charles’ efforts in highlighting climate change issues, despite it being a “hard road.” “He’s had a really rough ride on that, and I think he’s been proven to have been well ahead of the curve,” William said, while expressing hopes that his own son, Prince George, will not have “to ramp it up even more.”

“For me, it would be an absolute disaster if George is sat here… in like 30 years’ time whatever, still saying the same thing, because by then we will be too late.”

This week, the Duke of Cambridge, together with his wife Kate Middleton, visited an event in West London to encourage environmental awareness among school children. On Sunday, a green carpet will be rolled out for the royal couple to attend the Earthshot Prize awards ceremony, William’s initiative. Its first five winners for offering solutions to environmental problems will be given one million pounds (1.4 million US dollars) each.

William’s younger brother Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, who are now living on Musk and Bezos’ side of the Atlantic, are also known to be vocal advocates of protecting the planet from climate change. However, they have often found themselves in hot water for using private jets, which some see as hypocritical given their carbon footprint.

It's hard to disagree with what he is saying, especially when you believe that these billionaires are not going into space to find solutions to the Earth's problems; they are going there to feed their hungry egos.

However, I disagree with global warming being the primary problem with the earth. Child sexual abuse and poverty are far and away more devastating the global warming.

British propaganda campaign incited mass slaughter of communists

in Indonesia in 1960s, declassified papers reveal

17 Oct, 2021 14:47 / Updated 6 hours ago

An anti-Communist rally in Indonesian capital Jakarta in October 1965. © AFP

British spies played a part in the mass murder of Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) members in the 1960s, urging locals, including army generals, to “cut out” the “communist cancer,” declassified papers have revealed.

The Indonesian Army’s brutal clampdown on the PKI in 1965 and 1966 is considered to be one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century. Between 500,000 and three million supporters of the Communist Party were slaughtered, according to various estimations.

Declassified Foreign Office documents, which were recently released by Britain’s National Archives and seen by The Guardian newspaper, indicate that the UK isn’t without fault in those shocking events.

The British Foreign Office had always denied the country’s involvement in the brutal clampdown on those blamed of communist links in Indonesia.

But it turns out that London focused its propaganda machine on the founding Indonesian President Sukarno and his communist backers over the leader’s stern opposition to the Federation of Malaya, which the UK thought should unite its former colonies in the region.

Tensions between the PKI and the Indonesian military had been mounting since the early 1960s, with the president struggling to balance the rivaling forces. The army-sponsored massacre of communists began after a failed coup attempt by the supporters of Sukarno within the army ranks on October 1, 1965.

Several months before that, a team of specialists from the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD) had already been deployed in Singapore to produce black propaganda to undermine Sukarno’s rule, according to The Guardian. The failed coup only made it easier for the propagandists to influence their intended audience, which included anti-communist politicians and Indonesian army generals.

The propaganda was shared through an Indonesian-language newsletter, which was said to have been the work of Indonesian immigrants, but was actually issued by British specialists in Singapore. Within a year, some 28,000 copies of the newsletter had been published. The UK also funded a radio station, which Malaysians had been broadcasting into Indonesia.

Shortly after the massacre of the communists by the military began, the British-produced newsletter called for “the PKI and all communist organisations” to “be eliminated.” It claimed that Indonesia will remain in peril “as long as the communist leaders are at large and their rank and file are allowed to go unpunished.”

“Procrastination and half-hearted measures can only lead to… our ultimate and complete destruction,” the authors of the pamphlet warned their readers.

The killings allegedly intensified across the Indonesian archipelago in the weeks following the publication of the newsletter, with The Guardian insisting that “there can be little doubt that British diplomats became aware of what was happening.” The UK spies in the region had all the means to intercept Indonesian government communications and monitor the movement of its military, according to the paper.

One of the newsletters, released during the clampdown on the communists, had praised “the fighting services and the police” for “doing an excellent job.” The British propagandists compared the PKI to Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan in the pamphlet, and insisted that “the work started by the army must be carried on and intensified.”

Moreover, a letter from Norman Reddaway, one of the leading propagandists working in Singapore, to the British ambassador in Jakarta revealed the UK’s strategy “to conceal the fact that the butcheries have taken place with the encouragement of the generals.” He wrote that such an approach should’ve been taken in the hope that the generals would “do us better than the old gang.”

The Foreign Office experts and Indonesian generals were “singing in harmony,” Reddaway insisted in another declassified document. He also celebrated the British propaganda for being able to abolish Sukarno’s opposition to the Federation of Malaya project at “minimal cost” and within just half-a-year.

What Reddaway described as “the old gang” was completely crushed by the bloody events of the mid-1960s. President Sukarno was arrested in 1967 and died three years later under house arrest.

He was overthrown by General Suharto, who had been leading the Indonesian Army. Suharto then ruled Indonesia until 1998, enjoying political and economic support from the West. Transparency International (TI) labeled him the most corrupt politician in modern history in 2004, claiming that he embezzled between $15 billion and $35 billion during his time in office.

Documents that were declassified in the US in 2017 revealed that Washington also not only had “detailed knowledge” of the massacre of communists in Indonesia, but provided “active support” for those actions.

A Yale University study described the slaughter ordered by Suharto as an “absolutely essential cleaning out,” detailing the killing of from “50 to 100 PKI members” every night by civilian anti-communist groups with the “blessing” of the military.

Islam - Current Day - Bus Attack in Syria Kills 25; Explosions in Yemen Kill 20+; Muslims Destroy Hindu Temple; Islamist Group Banned

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'Terrorist attack’ on bus in Syria between Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra kills at least 25

30 Dec 2020 17:50 

FILE PHOTO. ©  REUTERS / Alaa Al-Faqir

A passenger bus on the road between Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra came under attack by terrorists, resulting in the death of at least 25 people on board, reported the Syrian state news agency SANA. Another 13 people were injured.

The attack took place on Wednesday afternoon local time, near the town of Kobajjep (Kabajeb), about 50 kilometers along the M20 road from Deir ez-Zor. 

Though the terrorist group Islamic State officially holds no more territory, there have been reports of their presence in the desert between the Euphrates river and Palmyra, an ancient city that changed hands several times during the Syrian conflict.

So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier in the day, one person was killed and three more injured in a rocket attack on Nabi Habil, some 30 miles (50km) outside of Damascus, which the Syrian government blamed on Israel.

Explosion and gunfire shakes Aden Airport in Yemen

as plane carrying new government lands 

30 Dec 2020 11:38 

People react as dust rises after explosions hit Aden airport, upon the arrival of the newly-formed Yemeni government

in Aden, Yemen December 30, 2020. © Reuters / Fawaz Salman

A loud explosion was followed by gunfire as Yemen’s new government landed at Aden International Airport. Local footage shows the chaotic scenes that resulted.

The blast reportedly killed at least five people and left dozens more injured. Footage from the Dubai-based Al-Hadath TV channel captured the incident as it was occurring. As people were peacefully leaving the plane via an airstair, a crowd gathered below it. Then suddenly a loud blast can be heard, causing the cameraman and other people at the airport to struggle to stay on their feet.

When the camera turns left towards the source of the sound, total chaos can be seen, with crowds of people running away through dark smoke, apparently left by the blast. Then, automatic gunshots are heard. At one point, Yemeni soldiers shoot their rifles up in the air to direct people away from the blast area.

An AFP correspondent on the scene said that “at least two explosions were heard as the cabinet members were leaving the aircraft.”

Graphic photos taken after the blast show the injured with blood all over their faces.

The cabinet members, including Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik, were not harmed and were transferred to the city’s presidential palace, according to Reuters.

Yemen’s new government was sworn in just last Saturday. Led by Abdulmalik, it includes members of opposing factions in Yemeni politics, and is supposed to represent a national push for unity in the war-torn country. The creation of the new unity government was backed by Saudi Arabia, to the point that the cabinet members were sworn in in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, instead of Aden, Yemen’s temporary capital amid the ongoing civil war.

The new government was the result of a political alliance between the Saudi-aligned Cabinet of Yemen, ultimately headed by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, and the Southern Transitional Council, a UAE-supported faction. In the ongoing civil war, both groups stand against the Iranian-backed rebel Houthi movement, which controls the north of the country.

The hostilities, together with the Saudi-led coalition bombings launched against the Houthis since 2015, have resulted in the region having the “largest humanitarian crisis in the world,” according to the UN.

UPDATE: 30 Dec 2020 15:22

Second explosion heard near presidential palace in Yemen’s Aden 

Local news have reported yet another explosion in Yemen, this time near the presidential palace, to which the new cabinet fled following the blast at Aden airport.

Yemen’s new government was transferred to the palace right after an explosion disrupted their arrival to Aden airport earlier today. It occurred as the officials were arriving to Aden from Riyadh, where cabinet members had a swearing-in ceremony that followed prolonged coalition talks brokered by the Saudis.

The destructive explosion at the airport resulted in more than 20 people being killed, and at least 60 injured, according to Salem Al-Shabhi, a senior health official who spoke to the Independent.

Mob led by Islamists demolishes Hindu temple in NW Pakistan

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Posted Dec 30, 2020, at 2:42 pm EST

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A mob led by members of Pakistan’s radical Islamist party demolished a Hindu temple Wednesday after setting it on fire in a deeply conservative northwestern town, a senior police official said.

The incident in the town of Karak drew condemnation from human rights activists and Pakistan’s minister for human rights, Shireen Mazari. Mazari took to Twitter to condemn the burning of the temple and urged law enforcement officials to ensure the arrest of those involved.

District police chief Irfan Ullah said police detained several people over their involvement in the attack on the temple.

Witnesses said the mob, led by activists and local leaders of the radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, attacked the temple after local Hindus received permission from authorities to renovate it.

The incident comes weeks after the government allowed minority Hindus to build a new temple in Islamabad on the recommendation of a council of clerics. Although Muslims and Hindus generally live peacefully together in Pakistan, there have been other attacks on Hindu temples in recent years.

Most of Pakistan’s minority Hindus migrated to India in 1947 when India was divided by Britain’s government.

The rest of them should have! Muslims are known, even very recently, to kidnap Hindu or Christian girls and forcibly convert them to Islam and then marry them against their will.

Karak, PK

Indonesia bans influential radical Islamist group

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Group's spiritual leader investigated for sexting

Online News Editor

December 30, 2020

Jakarta, (efe-epa).- Indonesia has banned the controversial but popular radical group the Islamic Defender’s Front that in recent years staged several anti-government protests in the country, officials said Wednesday.

The government order to force the group, known by its acronym FPI, to stop carrying out any type of activities came into force from Wednesday, said Mahfud MD, the coordinating political, legal, and security affairs minister.

The government disbanded the group in June 2019, but it continued to carry out activities unlawfully, said the minister. The registration of the group expired on June 20, 2019, and the license was never extended after that.

The authorities also point out that at least 29 members of the FPI, founded in 1998, were convicted in various terror cases, and at least another six have been accused of related crimes.

The ban came after Indonesia’s radical Muslim cleric Rizieq Shihab returned home in November from Saudi Arabia. He was in exile from 2017 after being accused of pornography charges that were later dropped.

Rizieq, 55, is the group’s spiritual figurehead and its co-founder.

Mahfud made the announcement in a press conference also attended by six senior government officials, including the home minister, the attorney general, intelligence head, police chief, and the head of counter-terror agency.

The government also screened some “disturbing” videos, which linked the radical group to violent practices. A clip, recorded in the Indonesian region of Pamekasan, showed followers of the group simulating acts of beheading.

Another showed Rizieq expressing his support for the global terror network Islamic State in a 2017 speech. The authorities also cite it as one of the reasons to ban the PFI.

More than 100 followers of the FPI have been convicted of other criminal offenses, the authorities said, accusing the extremist group of carrying out illegal raids against the so-called anti-Islam practices.

Rizieq was detained on Dec.13 for allegedly breaching Covid-19 health protocols by holding mass gatherings in November, days after he returned home.

A defender of Islamic Sharia law and opposed to secularization, Rizieq was jailed for seven months in 2003 for encouraging his supporters to attack nightlife venues in Jakarta.

In 2008, he was sentenced to a year and a half in prison for inciting his supporters to attack another group calling for freedom of belief in Indonesia.

Rizieq was also one of the ringleaders of protests by Islamic radicals in 2016 and 2017 against the then governor of Jakarta, the Christian Basuki Tjahaja Purnama before he was sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy.

He left for Saudi Arabia in April 2017 when Indonesian police were investigating explicitly sexual messages the cleric had allegedly exchanged with a follower on WhatsApp.

After his exile and failing to appear before authorities, police filed formal charges for violating pornography law and for violating the founding ideology of the Indonesian state Pancasila that promotes national unity.

However, the charges were dropped in mid-2018, allowing the preacher to return.

Hmmmm! Why? 

Islam: Current Day - Couple Lashed for Premarital Sex in Indonesia Despite CV19

Indonesia: Coronavirus restrictions eased so couple could be lashed

in Sharia state of Aceh for premarital sex

JUN 4, 2020, AFP

Two Indonesians caught having pre-marital sex were flogged a hundred times each on Friday in conservative Aceh province with a fraction of the usual crowd watching, due in part to coronavirus fears.

Aceh is the only region in Muslim-majority Indonesia to impose Islamic law, which allows whipping for charges including gambling, adultery, drinking alcohol, and gay sex. 

And, apparently, premarital sex.

Local officials have continued the practice despite bans on mass gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic, insisting they have taken adequate safety measures to prevent infections….

The man’s flogging was briefly paused because he couldn’t bear the pain, while a second flogger had to be pressed into service to finish the heavy lashing of his female partner.

“This young couple deserved a hundred lashes because they violated Islamic law,” said Agus Kelana Putra, head of general crime division at the prosecutor’s office in Aceh Besar district.

Another man caught in a hotel room with a woman was also whipped 40 times but his underaged female partner was spared.

Dozens watched Friday’s flogging, a spectacle criticised by rights groups but which regularly attracted hundreds before the pandemic….

EX-TERRORIST LEADS INDONESIA’S CHRISTIAN CONVERT MOVEMENT

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent BosNewsLife reporting from Jakarta.

JAKARTA, INDONESIA – The married-father-of-three has come a long way since he nearly blew up a Protestant church in Jakarta. Author Ahmad Quraisy, which isn’t his family name, was a commander of the feared Islamic State of Indonesia (NII), an Indonesian militant group. But the former Islamic terrorist now leads an underground movement in Indonesia converting Muslims to Christianity or, in his words, “personal faith in Christ.”

Quraisy, a 48-year-old humble man, told BosNewsLife that his movement has grown into some 7,000 members. “All of them are former Muslims. They meet in house churches across the country,” he revealed in an extensive interview. A BosNewsLife reporter met Quraisy, accompanied by his wife and an interpreter, in a secure separate room at a Jakarta restaurant. Leaving Islam remains a high-risk undertaking in what is the world’s largest Muslim nation. “But it was worth all the hardships we endured,” Quraisy stressed.

BosNewsLife agreed to cite only the publicly available name he uses in his self-published books due to security concerns. His remarkable journey to embracing the Christian faith began in the late 1990s. “I had become radicalized after the economic crisis. As a young commanding officer of the NII, I blamed Christians. One day, I took a bag with a time bomb to a Protestant church in the Indonesian capital. I was ready to set it off and kill many people. But then I heard the pastor telling the faithful that they should love their enemies and those who persecute them,” he recalled.

“I never saw that Christian love before in my life. I became convinced that I should not carry out my destructive plan.” He declines to say the exact name of the Church to avoid more repercussions from NII or other Muslim hardlines. “After I returned the bag with the bomb, the NII leadership got furious. I was put one month in detention.”

STRANGE VISIONS

Soon after his decision not to kill Christians, he started to see visions from the Lord, he explained. “It was in early 2000 that I met Jesus Christ in a miraculous way for the first time. Eventually, in 2001, I became a Christian.”

Quraisy believes Christ healed him from illness through visions and miracles. “I was suffering from typhus that knocked me down for a long time. One day I saw a person in white robes and glowing light saying: ‘Get up and get healed.’ I did not know it was Jesus, who healed me. But according to my old Islamic belief, a person can have a spiritual being as a teacher that accompanies you everywhere.”

He said Jesus Christ returned five months later. “He touched my head. I was shaking and became hot in my whole body. I still didn’t realize that this spiritual being was Jesus.” Quraisy claimed that demons left his home. “The next morning after He appeared to me, neighbors said they saw a being looking like a dragon wrecking in the courtyard of my house. Next week my neighbors saw hairy men in hunting apparel there. A week later, they saw a being appearing as a tiger.”

After what he called “black magic” left his life, he started “searching for the Light.” Quraisy opened a Bible that he borrowed from a Christian neighbor. “When I started to understand it, a great wind came into my room, and there was a bright light,” he remembered. “It was amazing because all the doors and windows were shut.

I was fully awake and sober when someone came, touched me, and brought me to another place. I later understood it was the work of Jesus Christ. He took me to a dessert that looked like a kingdom. A fellow with a big red eye and a sword was guarding that.”

He said the strange guard appearing in his vision led him into a “very bright” noisy place. “When I knocked on the door, someone opened. When I asked whether I could come in, that person said I had to wait while he looked up my name in a big book.”

The news wasn’t right. “The person told me that my name was not in the book. And then the guard with the red-eye brought me into a long dark alley. He said: ‘This is the place where you belong.’ It was a place full of torture.”

EXPERIENCING HELL

Quraisy said it was hell. “Because of Islam, I understood that in hell, people are burned alive. In this vision, I saw people being burned all the time.”

The vision, he expressed, also showed him a chained Islamic leader facing torture. But there were also religious Christians who had not accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior enduring hardships, Quraisy stressed. “I decided to go back to the bright room.” He suggested that the room symbolized Heaven. “The person who was standing in front of the bright room said it was not yet my time. But he added: “One day, you will be able to enter.”

In too many churches there is not enough emphasis on the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our personal lives. We must each accept Him completely as Lord before we are ready to spend Eternity with Him. IMHO.

The visions, Bible studies, and talks with Christians eventually made him think that Christ had been looking for him. He said he accepted Him as Lord and Savior in 2001. “It was an answer to my prayers,” said his wife. She was a Muslim who had already become a Christian. “My husband didn’t know. I had been praying for him in secret,” she told BosNewsLife. “I was praying that one day he would find Christ too.”

But then the problems began. They were removed from the mansion of Quraisy’s father. “He was outraged that I had left Islam and had become a Christian,” the author recalled.

Quraisy and his young wife and two small children were forced to live on the streets. “Two months, we lived in a bus station, because we had nowhere to go.” But fellow believers learned about their predicament. To them, Quraisy had become like the Biblical Paul, who first persecuted the Church before becoming an apostle. “But to my family, I was a traitor. They took away everything. But I told my father: ‘I don’t need your inheritance. I only need Christ.”

FACING TEMPTATIONS

That’s easier said than done, he admitted. “Sometimes, I was thinking of going back to Islam.” But, he said, he withstood these temptations. The couple tried to work hard to make a living. “My wife worked in an Indian restaurant. I took up all kinds of odd jobs. It was a huge difference in my previous life as an NII officer. At that time, we were rich and had nothing to worry about. Now we had to think about how to feed ourselves and our two children who were just three and four years old.”

They eventually moved to a small room with a filthy floor. “We lived on handouts from neighbors and friends from whom we received food and other supplies.” But Christ remained faithful, he noted. And what started as a seemingly hopeless undertaking, grew into a blessed work supported by thousands of former Muslims, Quraisy told BosNewsLife.

“In 2012 my then small group wanted to preach the Gospel. We went to pray to the Lord. Soon after, we began publishing my books and other materials. We decided to extend the movement and include discipleship training.”

With his success came church career opportunities. “I was even offered to have a congregation with a house and a car. But I turned the offer down. Because I want to focus on reaching the Muslim community for Christ.”

He said virtually all of his 7,000 members working underground are former Muslims. “They are all Christ-followers. We communicate through social media when organizing events in our many house churches. The smallest house church has about 20 members; the biggest contains hundreds of people of the same village.”

With his movement continuing to grow, he hopes one day to have one “large congregation full of people with a Muslim background.” High on his wishlist is a training center specialized in Bible study and discipleship. “This way they can go back and help their families and friends grow in the faith.”

There is more to this fascinating story. Please go to BosNewsLife to read the rest.

Sharia-Governed Indonesian District Bans Men & Women from Dining Together

Islam, like sin, is progressive! Here's another example.

A city in the region previously ruled that women must sit side saddle when riding on motorbikes.

© ROMEO GACAD / AFP

A district of Aceh province, the only area of Indonesia that is governed by Sharia law, has banned single men and women from dining out together in a bid to help women be “more well behaved.”

Single women in the Bireuen district on Sumatra island will be forbidden from sitting unaccompanied with men or co-workers at coffee shops and restaurants.

The directive also imposes a kind of curfew on women, ordering restaurants and cafes to not  serve unaccompanied females after 9pm. This tightens up a 2015 ruling which banned unaccompanied women from remaining at entertainment venues such as cafes and sports halls after 11pm.

“The objective is to protect women's dignity so they will feel more comfortable, more at ease, more well behaved and will not do anything that violates Sharia (Islamic law),” local head of the local sharia agency Jufliwan told AFP on Wednesday.

“Unmarried males and females who are not close relatives should not eat and drink at the same table, because it is sinful according to Sharia law,” Jufliwan added when speaking to the AP.

Cafe-owners and restaurateurs must also do their part to prevent any public displays of affection between unmarried couples. The notice, previously issued in 2016, was reissued on August 30 with some added guidance which precludes food sellers from hiring LGBT people as waiters.

The semi-autonomous region has previously received international condemnation for flogging people convicted of homosexuality, drinking alcohol and gambling. In 2013, Lhokseumawe city in northern Sumatra ordered women to sit side saddle when riding on motorbikes saying that straddling male drivers was “improper.”

War on Christianity - Islamic Group Blows Up 3 Churches in Indonesia

SUICIDE bombings have caused a number of fatalities at three churches in Indonesia's Surabaya City, Java. The attacks are believed to have been carried out by the Islamic state-inspired group, Jemaah Ansharut Daulah

By THOMAS MACKIE

Indonesian police have secured a fourth unexploded bomb. 

Media reports said at one church, a woman with a younger child and a teenager was being questioned by security when the bomb exploded.

Police have confirmed the explosions all occurred within 10 minutes of each other.

The first bombing happened at around 7.30am local time.

Police have only given details of one attack on Santa Maria Catholic Church and there have not yet been any claims of responsibility.

Frans Barung Mangera, East Java police spokesman said: "The victims are being identified."

He added: “We have confirmed one died at the scene, one died at the hospital, two police officers were injured and there are some civilians injured. 

“In total 13 people are being treated at the hospital.”

The number of fatalities is expected to rise. Footage seen by Express.co.uk show a number of dead bodies.

People at the scene desperately tried to help the injured. 

Television images showed toppled motorcycles and debris scattered around the entrance of one church.

Police have since cordoned off the areas as crowds started to gather. 

Authorities are also investigating whether there was an explosion at a fourth church.

Police ordered the temporary closure of all churches in Surabaya, and a large food festival in the city was cancelled.

The attack happened in Indonesia’s second biggest city. Surabaya is a port city on the Indonesian island of Java with a population of around 2.7million.

The bombings come just days after Islamist militant prisoners killed five members of an elite counter-terrorism force during a 36-hour standoff at a high-security jail on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta.

In January 2016, four suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a shopping area in central Jakarta.

In the early 2000s, Indonesia was rocked by terrorist attacks by affiliates of al Qaeda, including a bomb attack in Bali that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.

Indonesia Edges Closer to Criminalizing Gay and Extramarital Sex

World's largest Muslim nation goes more Sharia

Prison sentences up to 5 years for unmarried partners among measures being considered by Parliament

The Associated Press 

Revisions to Indonesia's criminal code being considered by Parliament would allow prison sentences of up to five years for sex between unmarried people and also criminalize gay sex, the bugbear of Indonesia's Islamic and secular political parties. (Heri Juanda/Associated Press)

Riding a tsunami of moral conservatism and anti-gay prejudice, Indonesia's Islamic political parties appear on the cusp of a major victory: outlawing all sex outside marriage. 

Revisions to Indonesia's criminal code being considered by Parliament would allow prison sentences of up to five years for sex between unmarried people. Those changes would also criminalize gay sex, the bugbear of Indonesia's Islamic and secular political parties.

Rights groups and legal experts fear a profound setback to human rights and privacy in Indonesia, one of the world's largest democracies, and the spread of vigilantism, already common in parts of the sprawling Muslim-majority nation of more than 250 million people. They are racing to organize opposition.

An online petition launched this week has gathered more than 20,000 signatures.

"Indonesia, whose constitution guarantees human rights and has ratified many human rights covenants, will be ridiculed by the world for creating a law that is potentially violating many of those rights," said Said Muhammad Isnur, head of advocacy at the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Foundation.

Majority of parties appear to support move

While the possible criminalization of sex between unmarried consenting adults has grabbed attention, the revised criminal code, which has nearly 800 articles, also contains changes that could weaken checks and balances in Indonesia's young democracy.

One article potentially makes criticism of the president defamation. Other articles could be used to weaken the Corruption Eradication Commission, one of Indonesia's most effective public institutions.

Asrul Sani, a lawmaker from the Islamic-based United Development Party, has told reporters that a 25-member parliamentary working committee agreed on nearly all the articles in the revised code. It and another Islamic party are seeking longer prison sentences for gay sex in circumstances that involve force, public acts or pornography and that is still being argued, he said.

Statements from different committee members indicate there isn't total agreement but a majority of parties appear to support criminalizing gay sex. Bambang Soesatyo, the speaker of Parliament and a lawmaker from the major secular party Golkar, said same-sex relationships should be criminalized because they could "corrupt the morality of the nation."

Islamic parties 'using' issue as 'marketing'

A few politicians outside the committee have raised concerns about the fundamental threat to privacy.

One of the obstacles in the way of the Islamic parties is President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's power of veto. But with provincial elections due this year and a presidential race in 2019, it's unclear whether Jokowi would risk political capital on protecting a hated and misunderstood minority or being seen as soft on morality issues. 

At a public caning last May outside a mosque in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, an official whips one of two men convicted of gay sex. (Heri Juanda/Associated Press)

"The Islamic parties are really using this issue as their marketing going into the political years, this year and next year," said Bivitri Susanti, a constitutional law expert who helped establish the Indonesian Center of Law and Policy Studies.

"The only thing we can do is to push the government, the  president, to stop this," she said. "Because if we see how the political parties, both the secular ones and the Islamic ones discuss this, I think this draft law will be passed as it is now."

Islamic parties make up four of the 10 factions in Indonesia's Parliament and due to the popular vote threshold being raised to four per cent, are at risk of losing their seats in Parliament next year if they can't rouse their bases.

They have typically commanded far less votes than secular parties, but their concerns resonate with a broad cross-section of Indonesians.

'Guardians of morality'

Hardline Muslim groups considered fringe a decade ago, such as the Islamic Defenders Front, have moved into the mainstream and shook Jokowi's government last year with a mass movement against the minority Christian governor of Jakarta, who was subsequently imprisoned for two years for blasphemy.

Conservative groups such as the Family Love Alliance believe Indonesia is being overwhelmed by immoral behaviour such as sex between unmarried young couples, and in December nearly succeeding in convincing Indonesia's constitutional Court to outlaw gay sex and sex outside marriage.  

Moderate groups, meanwhile, have struggled to muster their  forces. While many speak out online, that has little impact compared with the ability of Islamic groups to summon tens of thousands for mass protests.

The Islamic parties' message is perhaps at its most politically potent when aimed at Indonesia's besieged LGBT minority, which for the past two years has been the target of an escalating campaign of raids, arrests, hateful rhetoric from government officials and vigilante attacks.

Police in the conservative province of Aceh, which practices Shariah law, over the weekend rounded up 12 transgender people who worked in hair salons and publicly humiliated them by forcing them  into men's clothing and cutting their hair.

Susanti and other legal experts said enforcement would be a huge and impossible burden on police and encourage vigilante acts from self-appointed "guardians of morality," undermining an already fragile rule of law in Indonesia.

She said people who practice religions not recognized by the state could also be criminalized because their marriages aren't recognized. 

"The president should say no to this law," Susanti said. "But looking at how Jokowi is handling issues related to Islam I think he wouldn't do that."

Saudi Arabia is Destabilizing the World

This is a brilliant essay by a Senior Fellow at Brown U.

If you have been reading this blog for some time you may know that I have been saying that Islam progresses to become more Sharia-like over time and with increasing percentages of populations.

Stephen Kinzer explains why and how that happens,

and how the west blissfully ignores it.

Indonesian Muslims perform an evening prayer called 'tarawih' marking the first eve of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, at Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, May 26, 2017. During Ramadan, the holiest month in Islamic calendar, Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex from dawn to dusk. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

TATAN SYUFLANA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Indonesian Muslims at Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta on May 26. Saudi Arabia has been working to pull Indonesia away from moderate Islam.

By Stephen Kinzer   

JUST A FEW months ago, the governor of Indonesia’s largest city, Jakarta, seemed headed for easy re-election despite the fact that he is a Christian in a mostly Muslim country. Suddenly everything went violently wrong. Using the pretext of an offhand remark the governor made about the Koran, masses of enraged Muslims took to the streets to denounce him. In short order he lost the election, was arrested, charged with blasphemy, and sentenced to two years in prison.

This episode is especially alarming because Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, has long been one of its most tolerant. Indonesian Islam, like most belief systems on that vast archipelago, is syncretic, gentle, and open-minded. The stunning fall of Jakarta’s governor reflects the opposite: intolerance, sectarian hatred, and contempt for democracy. Fundamentalism is surging in Indonesia. This did not happen naturally.

Saudi Arabia has been working for decades to pull Indonesia away from moderate Islam and toward the austere Wahhabi form that is state religion in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis’ campaign has been patient, multi-faceted, and lavishly financed. It mirrors others they have waged in Muslim countries across Asia and Africa.

Successive American presidents have assured us that Saudi Arabia is our friend and wishes us well. Yet we know that Osama bin Laden and most of his 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and that, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a diplomatic cable eight years ago, “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”

“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”

Hillary Clinton (as Secretary of State)

Recent events in Indonesia shine a light on a Saudi project that is even more pernicious than financing terrorists. Saudi Arabia has used its wealth, much of which comes from the United States, to turn entire nations into hotbeds of radical Islam. By refusing to protest or even officially acknowledge this far-reaching project, we finance our own assassins — and global terror.

The center of Saudi Arabia’s campaign to convert Indonesians to Wahhabi Islam is a tuition-free university in Jakarta known by the acronym LIPIA. All instruction is in Arabic, given mainly by preachers from Saudi Arabia and nearby countries. Genders are kept apart; strict dress codes are enforced; and music, television, and “loud laughter” are forbidden. Students learn an ultra-conservative form of Islam that favors hand amputation for thieves, stoning for adulterers, and death for gays and blasphemers.

Many of the students come from the more than 100 boarding schools Saudi Arabia supports in Indonesia, or have attended one of the 150 mosques that Saudis have built there. The most promising are given scholarships to study in Saudi Arabia, from which they return fully prepared to wreak social, political, and religious havoc in their homeland. Some promote terror groups like Hamas Indonesia and the Islamic Defenders Front, which did not exist before the Saudis arrived.

Eager to press his advantage, King Salman of Saudi Arabia made a nine-day trip to Indonesia in March, accompanied by an entourage of 1,500. The Saudis agreed to allow more than 200,000 Indonesians to make the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca each year — more than come from any other country — and sought permission to open new branches of their LIPIA university. Some Indonesians are pushing back against the Saudi assault on their traditional values, but it is difficult to deny permission for new religious schools when the state is not able to provide decent secular alternatives. In Indonesia, as in other countries where the Saudis are actively promoting Wahhabism — including Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bosnia — the weakness and corruption of central governments create pools of rootless unemployed who are easily seduced by the promises of free food and a place in God’s army.

It (Saudi Arabia) gives clerics large sums to promote

their anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic brand

of religious militancy abroad

The surging fundamentalism that is transforming Indonesia teaches several lessons. First is one that we should already have learned, about the nature of the Saudi government. It is an absolute monarchy supported by one of the world’s most reactionary religious sects. It gives clerics large sums to promote their anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic brand of religious militancy abroad. In exchange, the clerics refrain from criticizing the Saudi monarchy or its thousands of high-living princes. Saudis with close ties to the ruling family give crucial support to groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS. This fact should be at the front of our minds whenever we consider our policy toward the Middle East — including when we decide whether to side with the Saudis in their new dispute with neighboring Qatar.

Saudi Arabia’s success in reshaping Indonesia shows the importance of the global battle over ideas. Many in Washington consider spending for cultural and other “soft power” projects to be wasteful. The Saudis feel differently. They pour money and resources into promoting their world view. We should do the same.

The third lesson that today’s Indonesia teaches is about the vulnerability of democracy. In 1998 Indonesia’s repressive military dictatorship gave way to a new system, based on free elections, that promised civil and political rights for all. Radical preachers who would previously have been imprisoned for whipping up religious hatred found themselves free spread their poison. Democracy enables them to forge giant mobs that demand death for apostates. Their political parties campaign in democratic elections for the right to come to power and crush democracy. This is a sobering reality for those who believe that one political system is best for all countries under all circumstances.

Their political parties campaign in democratic elections

for the right to come to power and crush democracy.

The Saudi campaign to radicalize global Islam also shows that earth-shaking events often happen slowly and quietly. The press, focused intently on reporting today’s news, often misses deeper and more important stories. Historians of journalism sometimes point to the northward “great migration” of African-Americans after World War II as an epochal story that few journalists noticed because it was a slow process rather than one-day news event.

The same is true of Saudi Arabia’s long campaign to pull the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims back to the 7th century. We barely notice it, but every day, from Mumbai to Manchester, we feel its effects.

Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. Follow him on Twitter @stephenkinzer.