Saudi tight-lipped over death penalty for RI workers The Jakarta Post, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa says the government of Saudi Arabia had remained silent on the fate of two Indonesian migrant workers facing the death penalty there. Earlier, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono sent a letter to Saudi authorities, requesting an […]
Fairy tale wedding: Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Bendara (center) is held aloft by her new husband, Kanjeng Pangeran Haryo Yudanegara (right), and his uncle, Gusti Bendoro Pangeran Haryo Suryodiningrat (left) at Yogyakarta Palace on Tuesday. Reuters/Beawiharta Yogyakarta’s iconic street, Jl. Malioboro, was flooded by some 40,000 onlookers hoping to catch a […]
Indonesia’s legislature is considering a tolerance bill aimed at reducing tensions between the Muslim majority and minority religions about such issues as building houses of worship and converting members to a different faith. But human rights groups worry the bill would actually have the opposite affect given the rise in […]
An interview with Zaenuda Ikhwanul Aziz from (the secretary of the legal committee of the Indonesian Ahmadiyah congregation (Jamaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia – JAI) is published by the Asian Human Rights Commission regarding the situation faced by Ahmadis in Indonesia.. How do you feel about what is happening to the Ahmadiyah […]
We are writing to raise our concerns about intimidation, threats and violence against several Ahmadiyya communities at the hands of certain religious groups and organizations, as well government officials in the province of West Java. These include attacks on the property of Ahmadiyya members, closure or takeover of Ahmadiyya places […]
KUALA LUMPUR: The Indonesian Finance Ministry is targetting a $500 million 5-year global sukuk issuance this year, an official told reporters at an Islamic finance forum here on Monday. “We are looking for the benchmark tenor, but we hope to have longer (tenures),” Dwi Irianti Hadiningdyah, deputy director of Islamic Financing for the ministry’s debt […]
And so, as it happens time and again, there appears to be yet another diplomatic spat looming over the horizon between Malaysia and Indonesia. The cause of it, this time round, is a dispute over border-land markers somewhere in East Malaysia/Kalimantan that appear to have been moved by persons yet […]
They live in a world of plenty, but one in seven will go hungry today Enough crops can be grown to feed the planet. But spiralling grain prices, stock market speculation, climate change and corrupt and failing governments have left almost a billion people facing starvation. Amid the democratic euphoria […]
Indonesia is looking to ramp up its production of South Sea pearls to 7 million tons from 5.7 million tons in 2010, and says it has the potential to produce up to 20 million tons a year. The country is only using about 28 percent of its pearl cultivation potential […]
Although there are some uncertainties, the Indonesian economy is well placed for what will now almost certainly be a sharp downturn in the world economy. Foreign reserves were at a record high at just under US$120 billion at the end of the second quarter, inflation was down to below 5 […]
Hans David Tampubolon, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta The Bekasi municipality has officially banned the religious practice of the Ahmadiyah sect on Thursday, a move pluralists deemed as the legitimation of a violation of the spirit of the Constitution. The head of the Bekasi Agency for State Unity, Politics and Community […]
The Jakarta Post Myanmar women prisoners walk outside Insein Prison in Yangon, Myanmar Wednesday after they were released. Myanmar has begun releasing more then 6,300 prisoners but has held back on freeing some prominent political prisoners. The releases began around the country Wednesday morning after President Thein Sein issued an […]
Jakarta Post Forum Discussion: Firebrand Islamic cleric and terror convict Abu Bakar Ba’asyir has condemned suicide bomb attacks on places of worship, saying such acts are “forbidden in religion”. He said that non-Muslims should be kept safe from any harm. “Bomb attacks are an accursed act. They are sinful, except […]
Civil libertarians alarmed at sweeping powers for intelligence agency Civil libertarians in Jakarta have been alarmed by the passage Tuesday of a bill that gives sweeping new powers to the State Intelligence Agency that critics fear will take the country back to the bad old days of the 30-year Suharto […]
WHAT is the single greatest failing of Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono? Ismail Yusanto, the public face of Islamist organisation Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Jakarta, tells me: “The government of Indonesia works on a secular system. In terms of politics, economics and society, a secular system will always produce many, many problems. […]
When asked to explain why he does what he does, Zaim Saidi points to a song, “Kisah 8 Dirham” (“The Story of 8 Dirhams”) by Gita Gutawa. The tune tells of the Prophet Muhammad going to the market with eight dirhams, or silver coins. Along the way, he gives away […]
Vatican City. Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholics in Indonesia on Friday to defend tolerance, peace and the rights of minorities, saying that the country’s constitution “guarantees” freedom of worship. Meeting with Indonesian Catholic bishops in Rome, Benedict encouraged them to “strengthen Indonesian society by promoting those values that your fellow […]
BBC updates Indonesia Profile from 1940-2011 A chronology of key events: circa 1940: Dutch colonialists eating in Java Dutch colonialists were the masters of Indonesia until 1949 1670-1900 – Dutch colonists bring the whole of Indonesia under one government as the Dutch East Indies. 1928 – A youth conference pledges […]
Rob Kerby, Senior Editor | 1:56pm Wednesday October 5, 2011 Islam’s most populous nation, Indonesia, is the most diverse nation imaginable — a far-flung archipelego of 13,466 islands where 238 million people speaking 742 languages live in everything from luxurious skyscraper penthouses to squalid cardboard slums, mountainside-hugging bamboo huts and […]
Two international relations scholars, Ed Mansfield and Jack Snyder, suggest that one of the characteristics of transition to democracy is the weakness of state institutions and the tendency for political elites to use negative nationalism to gain votes. In this case, the risks of internal conflict, and to some extent […]