Indonesian police arrested a man on Monday over an allegedly blasphemous TikTok video, in which he claimed that a mosque in the West Java province was blaring music.
Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has chosen Jakarta’s first Christian governor of Chinese descent, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, as a top candidate to oversee the construction of a new capital city in the majority-Muslim country, the Nikkei reported on Friday.
Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, a former general and chairman of the opposition Gerindra Party whose brother is a wealthy businessman, plans to make an issue of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure program when he challenges incumbent Joko Widodo next year. Subianto believes some of the Chinese projects are unnecessary.
A hardline Islamist group filed a blasphemy complaint in Indonesia on Wednesday against politician Sukmawati Sukarnoputri, the daughter of modern Indonesia’s founding president Sukarno and the sister of ruling PDI party leader and former president Megawati Sukarnoputri.
On Monday, Islamist cleric Habib Rizieq was accused of exchanging nude photos and graphic messages with a woman, in violation of Indonesia’s strict anti-pornography laws. Rizieq has been accused of other criminally insensitive acts, including insulting the national ideology of Pancasila.
Fresh from the outrageous conviction of Jakarta’s governor on trumped-up blasphemy charges, the leader of an influential Indonesian Islamist organization is targeting ethnic Chinese citizens and their money next.
Jakarta’s Christian governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known by his nickname “Ahok,” has been convicted of blaspheming against Islam and sentenced to two years in jail.
The Indonesian military has filed a police report over a story originating at The Intercept, which claimed protests against the governor of Jakarta were actually part of a plot to overthrow President Joko Widodo.
Indonesia police announced Wednesday that Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic Chinese Christian, is a suspect in a probe of a blasphemy law violation for joking about the Quran forbidding non-Muslims to rule over Muslim people.
A mob of 150 thousand Muslim protesters took to the streets on Friday in Jakarta, Indonesia, calling for the death penalty for the capital’s Christian governor.
