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October 16, 2006

Indonesia: One In Ten Muslims Support Violent Jihad

News from Reuters, also described by Stuff, The Australian, Nine MSN.com.au, The China Post and Pakistan's Daily Times states that a survey in Indonesia has found that one in ten Muslims support violent acts of terrorism in the name of Islam.

Indonesia, with 220 million people, has the largest population of Muslims in any nation. It has 187 million Muslims, 85% of the total demographic. A survey was released yesterday, carried out by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI).

In a statement, the report's authors state: "Jihad that has been understood partially and practised with violence is justified by around one in 10 Indonesian Muslims. They approved the bombings conducted...in Bali with the excuse of defending Islam."

They write that this figure is "very significant". Extrapolated to the general populace, it would mean that 18.7 million Indonesians support Islamic terrorism.

1,092 Muslim men and women were surveyed. The report also found that one in 5 people supported the Islamist terror group Jemaah Islamiyah which carried out the bombings on Bali on October 12, 2002 (202 dead) and October 1, 2005 (20 dead).

This would mean that 37.4 million Indonesians support the terror group.

We wrote on March 16 this year of another report by the Indonesian Survey Institute, which had been carried out in all of Indonesia's 33 provinces. This report had surveyed 1,173 respondents in face to face interviews. The March report, which collected its data in January, produced similar results.

Then, one in ten people (11.2%) reported that they thought that suicide bombings were justifiable on occasion, and 0.5% said that suicide attacks were always justifiable while defending Islam against its enemies.

In March, only 8% of respondents said they supported Jemaah Islamiyah. The current study indicates that, with 20% of respondents supporting the terror group, there has been a sea change in national opinion.

Another study, which we described on July 28, examined the thoughts of 1,200 respondents. This study, carried out by the Center for Islamic and Social Studies (PPIM) reported that 40% of Muslims claimed they would be prepared to go war for their faith.

The PPIM report had been carried out over a longer period, from 2001 to March 2006, in 30 of the nation's 33 provinces. This revealed that 43.5 % of respondents said they would be prepared to wage war on threatening non-Muslim groups, while 40% said they would employ violence against anyone seen to be blaspheming against Islam. 14.7% said they would be prepared to tear down Chrisian churches which did not have official permits. 0.1% said that they had already been involved in arson attacks against Christian churches without permits, and 1.3% said that they had committed acts of "intimidation" against those they thought had blasphemed against Islam.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 16, 2006 7:02 AM

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Posted by: Archimedes at October 16, 2006 4:09 PM

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