INDONESIA A NEWS

Islamic militants based in Indonesia's Aceh province worked with a fugitive suspected of planning the Bali bombings in an effort to unite various militant networks, court documents tabled on Thursday showed. While Indonesia's anti-terror squad has killed or detained scores of militants since the bomb attacks on the resort island of Bali in 2002, police and other security experts have warned about the potential security threats to foreign and government targets in Indonesia from newly formed groups. Prosecutors told a West Jakarta district court on Thursday that several men with links to various Muslim militant groups had operated a secret training camp in Aceh. The camp was discovered by police earlier this year, and at least 50 people have been arrested and several others killed in police raids since then. Earlier this month, police detained Indonesia's most famous radical cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, who was formerly the spiritual leader of the Southeast ...

Malaysia will not apologize to Indonesia for handcuffing three Indonesian enforcement officers and making them put on inmatewears. Malaysian Foreign Affairs Minister Anifah Aman made this remark here on Thursday after receiving an Indonesian youth delegation. Anifah said that if the Malaysian police were acting in accordance with the proper procedures, other countries should respect the process and therefore, the question of asking for an apology did not arise. At the same time, Anifah said the Malaysian government would not request the Indonesian government to apologize for the quarters who had thrown human faeces into the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta, capital of Indonesia. Anifah said that the irresponsible action did not reflect the Indonesian government's and majority Indonesians' stand, adding that the Indonesian government had not instigated them to do so. However, Anifah hoped that the Indonesian government would take stern actions against individuals ...

The Bishops' Conference of Indonesia (KWI) has criticized President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and asked him to show more courage in defence of religious freedom. Bishop Martinus Dogma Situmorang, chairman of the Kwi, and Mgr. Johannes Pujasumarta, KWI Secretary General, signed the letter to the President on August 16.  In their letter the bishops strongly invoke the intervention of President Yudhoyono to stop the wave of extremism affecting religious minorities: "We are concerned because the state appears unable to ensure protection of religious minorities ... when they are under pressure from the majority religious groups". The bishops refer to incidents in recent weeks in Bekasi and Bogor against Christians of the Protestant Church of Batak (Hkbp) and those of the Church of Yasmin. The faithful of both communities have been forced to pray outdoors because town officials have sealed their places of worship. Moreover, their religious functions are disturbed and interrupt...

The arrest last week of radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir was the highlight of a government crackdown on Islamic militants following the discovery in February of a training camp in Aceh province. Once regarded as the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group, Bashir's popularity has wavered in recent years and his position is emblematic of the evolving nature of militant Islam in Southeast Asia. The 72-year-old Bashir was arrested together with his wife and five bodyguards on August 9 while traveling to deliver a sermon in West Java. The arrest came only a day before the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and a week before Indonesia's nationally celebrated independence day on August 17. Bashir has denied any involvement with the camp, and even claimed that his arrest was arranged by the United States.   Bashir's arrest is the latest in an ongoing crackdown since the discovery of a jihadi training camp in northern Aceh run by a new coali...

Agnes Monica, the famous Indonesian actress and singer, is given to wearing sexy clothes, whether on stage, TV or advertising billboards -- but not in the provincial capital of Aceh province.   Just across from the 19th-century Baiturrahman Grand Mosque is a large billboard that features Monica wearing a headscarf - even though she's a Christian. Also absent is the tank-top exposing her bare arms and navel that Monica wears in the ad for cell-phone service running in the rest of the country.   Although the headscarf, or jilbab, is familiar attire in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, only in Aceh is it required for Muslim women. Failure to wear "Islamic dress" is a violation of one of Aceh's Islamic bylaws, and violators can either be reprimanded or hauled into court by the Shariah Police.   Despite Indonesia having a secular Constitution, devoutly Muslim Aceh was allowed to adopt parts of ghariah law, presumably to prevent the Acehnes...

On July 17, 2009, an 18-year-old boy walked into the lobby of the JW Marriot hotel in the Indonesian capital Jakarta and blew himself up. Five other people died in the attack and many more were injured. The Indonesian police quickly identified the bomber as Dani Dwi Permana - a teenager with no prior criminal record or history of violence. So what could have driven him to commit such an act? It was a question that plagued Dani's older brother, Jaka Karyana, and a year on from that day he set out to discover the answer. Filmmakers Lynn Lee and James Leong travelled with Jaka on his emotional search to discover what turned his brother into a suicide bomber. We first watched the news on TV about a year ago - a suicide bombing at Jakarta's JW Marriott Hotel and another one just down the road at the Ritz Carlton. There was shattered glass and debris everywhere, throngs of reporters and camera crews. We saw body bags being carried out of the hotels. But what really jolted us was...