---------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe?, send your mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body mail: "signoff indonews" need more help?, send your mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body mail: "info refcard" ---------------------------------------------------------- Popular Indonesian Moslem leader decries politicization of Islam JAKARTA, Dec 13 (AFP) - Popular Moslem leader Aburrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid called on Indonesians Sunday not to politicize Islam or use the religion as as the main principle of political parties. "I do not agree if Islam is politicized," Gus Dur said at the venue of what had been scheduled talks with several other opposition politicians who did not appear. He had been due to meet with leading opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri and pro-reform politician Amien Rais, who chairs the People's Mandate Party. Gus Dur said he deplored the fact religions, including Islam, were being increasingly politicizised for the interests of various groups and added he agreed with the opinion of Moslem scholar and reformist Nurcholis Majid that political parties should not be based on religion. "Even though Moslems account for about 86 percent of the Indonesian nation, the truly religious Moslems are much fewer in number," he said. Religion-linked violence has broken out in several Indonesian towns and cities, including in the capital, in the last month. A Jakarta gang dispute in November degenerated into attacks on Christians which left at least 13 people dead and 22 churches vandalized or burned. Christians in Kupang, capital of the predominantly-Christian province of East Nusatenggara, attacked mosques and Moslem-owned buildings a week later, burning at least four mosques and damaging several others. Similar incidents occurred on a smaller scale on Roti island, also in East Nusatenggara province, in the West Java province town of Banjarsari, and in Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi province. Since the fall of former president Suharto last May, the government of his successor, B.J. Habibie, has revoked a ban on new political parties and the obligation for every political party and mass organisation to adopt the more secular state ideology. Several parties based on religions, including Moslem parties, have since emerged and the United Development Party, one of the three political parties recognized under Suharto, has reassumed its full Moslem identity which it had previously been forced to relinquish. Habibie, himself a Moslem, earlier Sunday in an address at Jakarta's main mosque, called for religious tolerance and asked Moslems to respect other religions and their places of worship. str-bs/kf ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 16 Dec 1998 jam 03:06:35 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
