How to get 80,000 Muslims to fill up a soccer stadium? Unless there is a soccer match, a soccer stadium is hardly ever filled up. At the Gelora Bung Karno stadium, the largest stadium in Jakarta, on August 12, however, nobody was playing football when people filled up all the seats. Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), no stranger to crowd-mobilisation, managed to gather a huge crowd: some cynics say that getting 80,000 people together in a country like Indonesia is no big deal; the realities of the land in which an event is held are more important aspects to be analysed by observers of Indonesian politics, particularly those in the Islamic movement.
1It is a worrying sign when western leaders and their sidekicks — media, NGOs and thinktanks — welcome a new government in any Muslim country...
Like occupied Kashmir, Chechnya and now Iraq, the northern Sumatran province of Aceh too is going through the ‘democratic’ process...
At a time when the Indonesian government is dragging its feet over its promise to make ‘peace’ in Aceh, without even punishing the perpetrators of decades-long violence against civilians, an international labour-group has taken the unprecedented step of further exposing a less-known incident involving an American multinational corporation
At least 10 people in Aceh were wounded by gunfire, and many more injured in other incidents, on December 4, when Indonesian troops and police fired on people celebrating the territory’s ‘national day’.
Indonesian national police chief General Rusmanhadi announced the beginning of a new six-month offensive against Islamic rebels in Ache Sumatra on August 5.
Indonesian national police chief General Rusmanhadi announced the beginning of a new six-month offensive against Islamic rebels in Aceh Sumatra on August 5. He said that 11,000 security officers, including both police and regular troops, would be involved in the operation.
The problem with ‘strong’ leaders is that they do not leave behind an obvious successor. This is further complicated if the ‘strong’ leader also happens to be in power for a long time.
