DAR AL ISLAM - INDONESIA: THE SHARIA-IZATION OF INDONESIA

Islamic hard-liners chip away at Indonesia's secular traditions

JAKARTA, Indonesia: Women are jailed for being on the street alone after dark in parts of Indonesia, long held up as a beacon of moderate Islam. Gamblers are caned as punishment, Christian schoolchildren are forced to wear headscarves and a proposed law would sentence thieves to amputation of the hands.

Though most people in the world's most populous Muslim nation practice a tolerant form of the faith, a small but determined group of conservatives are chipping away at the sprawling archipelago's secular traditions and trying to reshape it in the image of orthodox Middle Eastern countries.

And they are slowly gaining ground, in part, critics say, because President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, liberal Muslim leaders and society at large have stayed away from loud, public debate on the issue.

Aiding the conservatives is the high level of autonomy given to local and regional legislatures since ex-dictator Suharto's 32-year leadership came to an end in 1998 amid massive, pro-democracy street protests.

More than 50 legislative bodies — from westernmost Sumatra island to Sulawesi further east — have passed laws inspired by the Islamic legal code, or Sharia, to regulate moral behavior.

On a federal level, hard-liners are pushing an anti-pornography bill that calls for prison terms of up to five years for kissing in public and one year for exposure of a woman's "sensual" body parts, though few expect it to pass in its present form.

"I call it creeping Sharia-ization of our society," said Syafi'i Anwar, executive director of the Jakarta-based International Center for Islam and Pluralism, noting that because Muslim groups have done poorly in national elections they are pushing their will through the "back door."

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