DAR AL ISLAM - INDONESIA: "WE WANT STRICT SHARI'AH LAW IN INDONESIA" DEMAND THE MOSLEM CLERICS

Clerics press Yudhoyono on Islamic law

JAKARTA: A group of Muslim clerics including Abu Bakar Bashir, who once was jailed for links to the 2002 Bali bombings, were thwarted yesterday in a bid to meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono over implementing Islamic law.

The clerics instead left a letter at the presidential palace demanding Yudhoyono introduce strict Islamic sharia laws in Indonesia.

Bashir has been accused by Western and regional intelligence officials of being the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asia militant group blamed for the Bali bombings.

“The president could not see us today. Of course, we are disappointed because it is imperative for us to tell him that this country could perish if we do not return to Islam,” Bashir told reporters. The clerics, who turned up without a scheduled meeting with the president, were met by a junior palace official.

“We warn the president as a Muslim he has the obligation to govern this country and its people using Islamic laws,” he said.

Yudhoyono has sought to tread a delicate path, avoiding offending Muslim sensibilities without angering the West over what some countries perceive as lenient treatment of Bashir.

Bashir’s conviction for conspiracy in the 2002 blasts on the resort island was overturned by the Supreme Court last December months after he was freed after completing his sentence.

Bashir, 68, was released in June after completing 26 months of a 30-month jail sentence for the 2002 Bali bombings.

White-bearded and bespectacled, Bashir has consistently denied any connection to that or other attacks blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah.

He says that Western governments orchestrated his incarceration because of his campaign for Islamic law in predominantly Muslim Indonesia.

The cleric said in an interview weeks after his release that he opposed the use of violence in Indonesia for defending Islam but said that tactic could be used in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.–Reuters


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