Hardliners vow to attack bars
JAKARTA, July 10, (AFP): Muslims in much of Asia began celebrating the holy month of Ramadan Wednesday, with hardliners in Indonesia vowing to raid “sinful” bars after police steamrollered a mountain of alcohol.
Tens of millions across the Muslim world fast from dawn to dusk and strive to be more pious and charitable during the month, which ends with the Eid holiday.
But Ramadan began in war-torn Afghanistan with a bomb blast, and there was tight security in parts of the southern Philippines after deadly clashes with Muslim rebels.
In Indonesia under its president Sosilo Bambang Yodhoyono, which has the world’s biggest Muslim population, hardliners use Ramadan as an excuse to attack nightspots and shops that openly sell alcohol, the consumption of which is against Islamic law.
There were fears the situation could be worse this year after a recent upsurge in attacks on religious minorities and non-mainstream Muslims.
Critics say hardliners such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) have been emboldened by the government’s failure to crack down on them and to prevent such attacks.
In the days before Ramadan, there were already reports that the FPI — who led protests that forced pop star Lady Gaga to cancel a concert in Jakarta last year — had started conducting raids.
“We will take firm action against the circulation of alcohol, and prostitution,” Habib Idrus Algadri, head of an FPI group in Depok district outside Jakarta, was quoted as saying in a local newspaper.
He was leading a group of FPI members who seized bottles of alcohol from a shop at the weekend.
Habib Salim Alatas, the head of the FPI’s Jakarta branch, told AFP that 50 members would be sent out to monitor nightspots in the capital every evening.
“We will send out groups of two to three wearing civilian clothes to spy on sinful activities like the drinking of alcohol taking place around Jakarta during the Ramadan holy month,” he said.
Authorities have also been making a show of cracking down on the illegal sale of alcohol.
At the weekend police in Jakarta used a steamroller to crush thousands of bottles of homemade alcohol that was being sold in places without licences, as well as destroying pornographic and pirated DVDs.
For non-Muslims and others in Indonesia who drink alcohol, getting a bottle of during Ramadan can be a challenge as some bars only want to serve customers they know for fear of being targeted by hardline spies.
There was however a glimmer of hope for the millions whose lives are disrupted by mosques blaring out Islamic chanting at all hours during Ramadan with loudspeakers.
The start of Islam’s holiest month brought no let-up in Afghanistan’s long-running conflict, with three civilians killed and two others wounded in a Taliban roadside bombing in the southern province of Helmand, authorities said.
The interior ministry said that two dozen rebels had been killed in operations across the country over the past 24 hours.
Also: JAKARTA: Indonesian mosques must limit their use of loudspeakers to stop disrupting the lives of those who reside nearby, an official urged Wednesday at the start of the holy month of Ramadan.
The approximately 800,000 mosques in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country go into overdrive during Ramadan, noisily blasting out Holy Quran verses from the early hours.
But the Mosques Council, an independent body which groups many of the country’s mosques, said it had asked the places of worship to cut back on their use of loudspeakers.
“Mosques are always more noisy during Ramadan so we have asked them to limit the use of their loudspeakers,” said deputy council head Masdar Masudi.
The mosques begin their sermons earlier than usual in Ramadan, when Muslims forgo food, drink and sex between dawn and dusk, as they call people for the “sahur” breakfast that is eaten each day before fasting begins.