Spread of Islamic Law in Indonesia Takes Toll on Women

i.beletesri · #1 (**permalink**) 06-29-2008, 08:39 AM

By JANE PERLEZ
June 27, 2006
NY Times

TANGERANG, Indonesia — To a passer-by, the dress and demeanor of Lilis Lindawati would have attracted little attention as she waited in the dark in this busy industrial city for a ride home.

She wore green pants, a denim jacket, beige sandals with modest heels, burgundy lipstick and penciled eyebrows. Her black hair flowed freely, unencumbered by a head scarf, the sign of a religious Muslim woman that is increasingly prevalent in Indonesia but not mandatory.

In a now widely recounted incident, Mrs. Lindawati, 36, was hustled into a government van that clammy February evening by brown-uniformed police, known as tranquillity and public order officers.

"They put about 20 of us in the police station and then went out again to target the hotels," she said, telling the story as she sat on the floor of her family's two-room, $12-a-month rental, her husband beside her.

She was charged with being a prostitute under a new local law forbidding lewd behavior, and in an unusual public hearing attended by local dignitaries and residents, she was sentenced with some of the other women to three days in jail.

Mrs. Lindawati insists she is not a prostitute.

Her case has become a symbol of an increasingly impassioned tussle in Indonesia between those who favor the introduction of Shariah, or Islamic law — sometimes called Islamic-like laws — by local governments, and those that assert that this large Muslim country, recognized for its moderation and diversity, must hold firm to its secular Constitution of 1945.

Nearly 30 local governments have introduced Shariah laws or Shariah-inspired legislation, from Aceh in the far north where Shariah laws have lain quiescent on the books for several years but are now being carried out by special Shariah courts, to southern Sulawesi and to small islands farther west.

In Aceh, the province devastated by the tsunami, officers belonging to a special Shariah police unit stop women on the street who do not have their head scarves properly adjusted and often impose fines. In some instances, women have been publicly whipped for being caught in public with men who are not their husbands, said Suraiya Kamaruzzaman, a founder of Flower Aceh, a women's rights group.

In Sulawesi, one of Indonesia's main islands, three southern districts have passed Shariah legislation and are establishing Shariah courts to enforce the laws. Schoolgirls have been sent home for wearing clothes considered insufficiently modest. In some places, women who are government officials must wear a head scarf to work.

To many, the new laws represent stealthy movement toward excessive intrusion of Islam into Indonesia's political process, often with the backing of the Justice and Prosperity Party, a fast-rising Islamic party....."

[.....]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/wo...=1&oref=slogin

Ironmanmlr · #2 (**permalink**) 06-29-2008, 09:59 AM

Women who are the victims of religious degradation, run, run far and fast; there are too many countries where you would be treated as human beings and not chattel. You don’t have to give up your faith, just your location. We stand with open arms to give comfort and hope. Please run, we are waiting.

FreedomSeeker · #3 (**permalink**) 06-29-2008, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ironmanmlr

....You don’t have to give up your faith, just your location.....

But it can't be denied that ultimately Islam is the underlying problem. The way the Islamic texts talk about women is about as bad as it gets!

Makedde · #4 (**permalink**) 06-29-2008, 07:40 PM

The artical is two years old - has the situation changed at all? Do we have an update on the Islamic law in Indonesia?

i.beletesri · #5 (**permalink**) 06-29-2008, 08:23 PM

Google!
(this from typing in your phrase, 'islamic law in indonesia', then 'News' tab for latest/last 30 days)

Indonesia backs sharia law, poll shows
Thomas Bell, Telegraph.co.uk
24/06/2008

A majority of Indonesians would like to see Sharia law implemented in their country, a new poll shows, although only a minority favour the harsh measures sometimes associated with the system.

The poll of 8,000 people in the world's most populous Muslim country, home to 200 million Muslims, found that 52% favoured some form of Islamic legal code, such as religious arbitration in family disputes.

Asked if women should be made to wear a head scarf 45% said yes, while 40% favoured Chopping off the Hands of thieves.

"A lot of people think the idea is very good, but when you start talking of every day implications, the number dropped," said Ira Soekirman of Roy Morgan Research, an Australian company which conducted the survey.

Indonesia has traditionally practised a tolerant brand of Islam, although there are some trying to pull the country in a more conservative direction.
[........]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...oll-shows.html

IHT on same Pol.. Slightly different Slant:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/...slamic-Law.php

Makedde · #6 (**permalink**) 06-29-2008, 09:00 PM

Interesting.

Two years ago, it seemed women were struggling with Sharia law, now it seems many have accepted, even embraced it.

If Sharia law treats women badly, I have a hard time believing that these women would accept it in their society.

i.beletesri · #7 (**permalink**) 06-29-2008, 10:03 PM

You're so concerned about Abortion rights.. yet have not much problem with Breathtakingly deprivational of All women's Rights.. Sharia.
This is a pattern here for you.

Quote:

The Trouble With Islam
Sadly, Mainstream Muslim teaching accepts and promotes violence.

by TAWFIK HAMID
April 3, 2007
Wall St Journal

[.....]
But indeed, there is much that is clearly wrong with the Islamic world.
Women are stoned to death and undergo clitorectomies.
Gays hang from the gallows under the approving eyes of the proponents of Shariah, the legal code of Islam.
Sunni and Shia massacre each other daily in Iraq.
Palestinian mothers teach 3-year-old boys and girls the ideal of martyrdom.
One would expect the orthodox Islamic establishment to evade or dismiss these complaints, but less happily, the non-Muslim priests of enlightenment in the West have come, actively and passively, to the Islamists' defense.

These "progressives" frequently cite the need to examine "root causes." In this they are correct: Terrorism is only the manifestation of a disease and not the disease itself. But the root-causes are quite different from what they think.

As a former member of Jemaah Islamiya, a group led by al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, I know firsthand that the inhumane teaching in Islamist ideology can transform a young, benevolent mind into that of a terrorist. Without confronting the ideological roots of radical Islam it will be impossible to combat it.....

It is vital to grasp that traditional and even mainstream Islamic teaching accepts and promotes violence.

Shariah, for example, allows apostates to be killed, permits beating women to discipline them, seeks to subjugate non-Muslims to Islam as dhimmis and justifies declaring war to do so. It exhorts good Muslims to exterminate the Jews before the "end of days." The near deafening silence of the Muslim majority against these barbaric practices is evidence enough that there is something fundamentally wrong.

The grave predicament we face in the Islamic world is the virtual lack of approved, theologically rigorous interpretations of Islam that clearly challenge the abusive aspects of Shariah. .....

...Yet it is ironic and discouraging that many non-Muslim, Western intellectuals--who unceasingly CLAIM to support human rights--have become obstacles to reforming Islam. Political correctness among Westerners obstructs unambiguous criticism of Shariah's inhumanity..."

Western feminists duly fight in their home countries for equal pay and opportunity, but seemingly ignore, under a facade of cultural relativism, that large numbers of women in the Islamic world live under threat of beating, execution and genital mutilation, or cannot vote, drive cars and dress as they please...

The tendency of many Westerners to restrict themselves to self-criticism further OBSTRUCTS reformation in Islam..."

"....Progressives need to realize that radical Islam is based on an antiliberal system. They need to awaken to the inhumane policies and practices of Islamists around the world. They need to realize that Islamism spells the Death of Liberal values...."

"....All of this makes the efforts of Muslim reformers more difficult. When Westerners make politically-correct excuses for Islamism, it actually endangers the lives of reformers and in many cases has the effect of suppressing their voices...."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110009890

Makedde · #8 (**permalink**) 06-29-2008, 10:06 PM

I do not wish to see the rights of women take away from them, but my problem is that if the women in Indonesia seem to support Sharia law - as is the impression I get from the second artical you posted at my request - there can't really be a problem with it. If the women accept it, fine.

I'd wonder if the women surveyed were allowed to remain annoymous, an annoymous poll could reveal that women actually don't like Sharia law when open polls could mean the women claim they do accept it, when they are simply afraid of the consequences of rejecting it.

wind · #9 (**permalink**) 06-30-2008, 05:50 AM

10. Islam commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped.

9. Islam allows husbands to hit their wives even if the husbands merely fear highhandedness in their wives.

8. Islam allows an injured plaintiff to exact legal revenge—physical eye for physical eye.

7. Islam commands that a male and female thief must have a hand cut off.

6. Islam commands that highway robbers should be crucified or mutilated.

5. Islam commands that homosexuals must be executed.

4. Islam orders unmarried fornicators to be whipped and adulterers to be stoned to death.

3. Islam orders death for Muslim and possible death for non—Muslim critics of Muhammad and the Quran and even sharia itself.

2. Islam orders apostates to be killed.

1. Islam commands offensive and aggressive and unjust jihad.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/...sharia_is.html

wind · #10 (**permalink**) 06-30-2008, 05:58 AM

In urban areas, such as Banda Aceh and Tanggerang, where the most radical political changes have taken place, women have been arrested for being out alone at night or failing to wear a headscarf as a government employee; in addition, those who consume alcohol face public whipping. A majority of Indonesians and many foreign governments, including the United States, fear that the current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, cannot reign in hardline Muslim conservatives and that individual freedoms and the country’s moderate traditions hang in the balance.
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/st...05/sharia.html

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