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December 7, 2005
Indonesia: Islamic School Pupils May Be Fingerprinted
We mentioned earlier the concerns which were besetting the vice president of Indonesia, Jusuf Kalla (pictured). On October 20 we reported that he had announced that Islamic boarding schools, or pesantren which bred terrorism would be "investigated and controlled".
"Out of the 17,000 boarding schools (in Indonesia) there are one or two, I repeat one or two, that are extreme and not in line with the teachings of Islam. We will have to investigate and control (them)," he said.
Kalla did not specify any schools in particular, but the Al-Mukmin and Al-Islam schools are assumed to be the ones he means, as several terrorists graduated from them, including terrorists involved in the 2002 Bali bombings, and the bomb attack on the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, which killed 12 people. The Al-Mukmin school was founded by the imprisoned cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.
Only a day later Kalla had apparently changed his mind, after he had a "meeting" with the secretary-general of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), a hardline but authoritative Islamic body, who made a controversial "fatwa" in July, when they announced that liberal interpretations of Islam, secularism and pluralism were un-Islamic and therefore or forbidden. The MUI are also believed to be involved with campaigns to close churches in Indonesia.
Now, according to the Washington Times it appears that Kalla is again becoming firmer in his approach to Islamic extremism. He has said that the entire population of 3.5 million pupils attending the madrassas or pesantren will be fingerprinted.
The move has brought responses of outrage from around the archipelago. The Washington Times quoted the Inernational Crisis Group who said that more than 30 people, both accused and convicted, had attended the Ngruki Islamic boarding school in Central Java, which had been founded by Abu Bakar Bashir, himself in jail for authorising the 2002 Bali bomb attacks, which killed 202 people.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at December 7, 2005 12:53 AM
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