Wearing headscarves and reciting the Koran, students at an Indonesian Islamic school look like ordinary women practicing their faith in the holy month of Ramadan, but they are actually transvestites.
La liberté religieuse dans le pays musulman le plus peuplé du monde est désormais clairement menacée, ont affirmé mardi des intellectuels indonésiens en accusant le gouvernement de se plier aux exigences des intégristes islamiques.
""Islamic" paramilitary groups claim constantly that they are the true defenders of Islam, saying Allahu Akbar (Allah is great) while at the same time lashing women with bamboo."
Though Indonesia's contemporary artists enjoy an enthusiastic audience, they increasingly feel that Islamist moralizers are interfering with their creativity.
Ali Noer Zaman argues that the impact of an innovative approach to Islamic studies has resulted in "a fresh reading of some Islamic treatises, which are not regarded as being fixed, or unalterable, in the way that the Qur'an is".
Islamic boarding schools in Indonesia are moving to promote a sense of civic nationalism alongside religious education to help stop violence committed in the name of religion, reports AMANA.
"These clerics are not democratically elected officials, nor legislators. There is no obligation for the state to legitimize their presence or support their activities with state funding."
"Every edict pronounced should be based on the expertise of that field, not limited merely to the halal (allowed) versus haram (prohibited) paradigm. Enlightenment is what Indonesian society needs."
