Christmas greetings chime despite edict

On Christmas Day, Muslims and Christians, from scavengers to affluent residents, were lining up to extend holiday greetings to Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama at his official residence in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

The deputy governor — the first Christian of Chinese-descent to take a top job in the capital city since 1965 — hosted an open house to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ despite a mostly unheeded edict from the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) for Muslims not to wish Christians a happy Christmas let alone take part in festivities. The MUI had said wishing a happy Christmas was akin to confirming the “misguided” teachings of Christianity.

Ahok said that it was customary for high officials to hold an open house on religious festivals in a bid to stay in touch with residents of the city. “If other officials do it every Lebaran [the Idul Fitri Islamic holiday], I will do it on Christmas,” he said in his greeting speech, before inviting visitors to enjoy chicken satay, soto Betawi (beef and coconut milk soup) and meatballs that were served non-stop.

The election of Ahok as Jakarta’s deputy governor has been seen as a sign that the majority of Jakarta residents are becoming more tolerant of having a leader from a different religious background.

The last Christian to hold an executive post in the capital city was Henk Ngantung, who served as deputy governor from 1960 to 1964 and as governor from 1964 to 1965.

Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, former governor Sutiyoso and former deputy governor Prijanto were among Ahok’s guests along with other Jakarta administration officials, who are mostly Muslims. Jokowi, who visited the Jakarta Cathedral and Immanuel Church on Christmas Eve, came at midday to Ahok’s residence to personally deliver his Christmas greeting, in what he called his first friendly visit to his deputy.

In most parts of the archipelago, Christmas celebrations passed off peacefully, except for the members of GKI Yasmin and Filadelfia congregations in Bogor and Bekasi who were still barred from holding services in their own churches. The two congregations still face persecution and called for an end to their plights.

In Yogyakarta, an entourage of some 70 representatives of community and interfaith groups conducted a Christmas tour to wish Protestants and Catholics a merry Christmas. They visited three churches, namely the GPIB Jamaat Church in Margo Mulyo, the Santo Antonius Church in Kota Baru and the Javanese Christian Church (GKJ) Sawo Jajar in Gondokusuman.

“On behalf of the Yogyakarta Palace we convey a Merry Christmas to you all,” KPH Wironegoro of the
Yogyakarta Palace told the congregation of Santo Antonius Church on Sunday evening, which was received warmly.

The palace, he said, supported multiculturalism and pluralism. “Hopefully what we do in Yogyakarta can be a light for Indonesia and the world,” said Wironegoro, the husband of the sultan’s first daughter GKR Pembayun.

Abdul Muhaimin of the Yogyakarta Interfaith Forum (FPUB) said the sultan had an obligation to protect the rights of all his people even those who believed only in the mythical figure of Nyai Roro Kidul, the ruler the South Sea.

In Bantul, Yogyakarta, thousands of Catholics flocked to Hati Kudus Tuhan Yesus (HKTY) Church to enjoy the colossal Javanese traditional drama Kethoprak during Christmas mass on Monday evening. “Through the performance hopefully the congregations will find it easier to understand the Bible, because the story is taken from verses in the Bible,” said Sri Nugroho, who organized the Christmas celebration.

A different way of celebrating Christmas was found on the slopes of Mount Merapi in Tangkil village in Magelang, Central Java. The celebration was marked by a blessing of agricultural implements, seedlings and livestock.

In Ungaran, Semarang regency, Central Java, Christmas celebrations held in Sidomulyo Square right next to the Ungaran Grand Mosque also ran smoothly and peacefully despite initial threats by the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) to thwart the event.

Some 3,000 worshippers from 40 churches across Semarang regency joined the celebrations that have been conducted annually in the square since 2000.

MUI nixes Christmas for SBY

Conservative Muslim leaders are not stopping with edicts forbidding Muslims from wishing Christians a Merry Christmas. Now they want the President not to attend any observation of the holiday in an official or personal capacity.

A representative of the Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI) renewed on Sunday an edict (fatwa) forbidding Muslims from extending holiday greetings to Christians and said that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had to skip a national Christmas celebration scheduled for Dec. 27.

“If you talk about the MUI edict, it forbids attendance at the [Christmas] rituals. A Muslim should not attend the ritual, because it is a part of worship activities that should only be attended by Christians,” Ma’ruf Amin, the council’s deputy chairman, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Ma’ruf said that Yudhoyono, as a Muslim, should not attend the national Christmas celebration, which he said would contain a Christian religious element.

Yudhoyono and Vice President Boediono, who is also a Muslim, are among the top officials who are scheduled to attend the national Christmas celebration. Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali joined the President and Vice President during a similar national observance in 2011.

Several Muslim organizations have echoed the MUI’s call. The United Indonesian Muslims (Persis), for example, said that it was inappropriate for the President to attend the national Christmas celebration.

“Even though they are the country’s leaders, they are forbidden to attend such Christmas celebrations,” Persis chairman Maman Abdurrahman said, as quoted by the website of conservative Muslim organization Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia’s (HTI).

Maman said that Yudhoyono and Boediono should instead order officials from the Religious Ministry’s Protestant and Catholic directorate to come to attend the event on their behalf.

Separately, the infamous hard-line Islam Defenders Front (FPI) said that Yudhoyono and Boediono would “undermine” Islam if they decided to attend the celebration.

Muchsin Ahmad Alatas, the head of the FPI’s campaign division, advised the President and Vice President not to attend the celebration. “They decided to attend the program because they don’t have sufficient understanding of Islam,” Muchsin said. “They should have consulted with people who understand Islam better before making their decision.”

Muchsin said that Yudhoyono should ignore Christians in favor of the nation’s Muslims. “People will understand his decision, because he will have respected the feelings of the [nation’s] majority-Muslim population.”

“If the President shows up, it means that state affairs take precedence over his faith,” he said.

However, representatives of several moderate Muslim groups have disagreed with the conservative groups.

“Wishing Christians a merry Christmas is one form of tolerance between people of different faiths,” Salahuddin Wahid, a noted leader of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the nation’s largest Muslim social organization, said as quoted tempo.co.

Salahuddin said that an interfaith exchange of Christmas greetings was similar to saying “Happy Birthday” or “Happy New Year” — neither of which was forbidden by Islam, according to Salahuddin.

Din Syamsuddin, the chairman of Muhammadiyah, the nation’s second-largest Muslim social organization, agreed, previously saying that he regularly exchanged Christmas wishes with Christian friends, which he considered only greetings.

While conservative Muslims in Indonesia have attempted to make interfaith Christmas greetings an issue for several years, Muslims in other nations no longer have such concerns.

In some parts of the Islamic world, Muslims say “Merry Christmas” and join celebrations. Some Muslim political leaders have even attended Christmas services to strengthen interfaith ties.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, for instance, regularly joins annual Christmas services in Bethlehem, while the leaders and the rank-and-file members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood joined annual Christmas services at a Coptic Christian church in Cairo in 2011.

Ma’aruf, however, said that Indonesian Muslims should not say Merry Christmas. “It is still a debate. They would be better of not doing that.

Decision on monorail pushed to January

Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said on Friday that he will determine the fate of the city’s monorail project in January, pending a detailed technical presentation from the bidder.

The governor said that he still needed to hear the presentation from the potential developer PT Jakarta Monorail (JM) on the construction of the project.

“I’m giving [JM] until Jan. 15, so they can complete their study on the monorail construction, including the financial, crossing and technical aspects,” he said after meeting a representative from JM at City Hall.

As soon as JM completed its presentation, Jokowi said he would immediately determine his next step so the project could begin soon.

Jokowi also said that JM was currently the only bidder on the project as another bidder, state-owned construction firm PT Adhi Karya, did not want to continue to be involved in the project.

“Adhi Karya is no longer interested in it. But we’re still giving them the opportunity if they want to do another monorail route,” he said.

Previously, two consortiums were interested in teaming up with the Jakarta administration on the monorail project.

One of the consortiums is led by JM, which was responsible for the failed monorail construction project that was started in 2005 and then halted in March 2008 due to legal and financial problems.

JM’s consortium is made up of a number of foreign and local construction companies and financial institutions, though the firm claimed that most of the consortium members had now changed, leaving only a fraction of the original lineup.

The other consortium is led by state-owned construction firm PT Adhi Karya, which is collaborating with state toll road operator PT Jasa Marga, state electricity firm PT PLN, state-owned PT Bank Mandiri, state train builder PT Inka, electronic components maker PT LEN Industry and state-owned telecommunications firm PT Telkom.

Adhi Karya previously held a 7.5 percent stake in JM.

Adhi Karya president director Kiswodarmawan said earlier that the company had tried to work with JM in the past, but nothing came of the cooperation, so they would not do it again.

Earlier this year, Adhi Karya offered to build its own version of the monorail network, the first phase of which was estimated to cost around Rp 12 trillion (US$1.24 billion).

JM’s spokesperson Bavananto said that they would immediately work on the presentation as requested by the governor, especially its technical aspects. “We can’t use our initial design so there will be some changes because of the city’s current condition,” he said.

However, he said that the company would still use its initial routes. The first route will connect Semanggi and Kuningan in South Jakarta while the second route will link Kampung Melayu in East Jakarta and Taman Anggrek shopping center in West Jakarta.

JM’s initial construction work left rows of concrete columns along the roads in Senayan, Central Jakarta, and Kuningan in South Jakarta.

Before the plan to resurrect the monorail project surfaced, the previous administration planned to use the abandoned columns for its elevated Bus Rapid Transit project.

Greater Jakarta: Hospital needs rules regarding filming

JAKARTA: The Health Ministry said that filming a soap opera in an intensive care unit (ICU) room was not a problem, although a regulation would be drafted in response to a recent incident.

“There has to be clear regulation stipulating the rules,” director for health development, Chairul Radjab Nasution, told reporters on Friday.

Chairul was responding to a complaint by the father of Ayu Tria Desiani, a leukemia patient who died at Harapan Kita Maternity and Children’s Hospital in West Jakarta on Thursday morning, about a soap opera being filmed in the room.

Ayu’s father, Kurnianto Ahmad Syaifur, 47, said that shooting for the TV series Love in Paris went on all night, with the film crew and actors walking around without special clothes designed for the sterile environment.

Chairul said that ICU rooms were categorized as “sub-sterile” and visitors were only required to wash their hands and wear a mask.

He added that the filming should not have disturbed patients as the location was vacant. The hospital’s president director, Achmad Soebagjo Tancarino, said that the management accepted the filming request in the ICU room for promotional purposes. “We have done this several times,” he said.

120 Jakarta inmates moved to Nusakambangan

Sihabudin
Penitentiary Director General

Due to overcrowding in Jakarta’s jails, 120 inmates were this week transferred to Nusakambangan Island’s prisons in Cilacap, Central Java.

The inmates were from Cipinang Penitentiary and Cipinang Drug Prison, as well as Salemba Penitentiary.

“Most of the transferred inmates are involved in drug cases, with sentences of up to 17 years,” Cipinang prison official Prayitno, who guarded the transferring, said on Thursday.

Nusakambangan Island is a home to seven penitentiaries known to house high-profile convicts, including those jailed for corruption and terrorism.

The seven prisons, each separated by approximately 4 kilometers, are Terbuka, Besi, Narcotics, Kembang Kuning, Permisan, Pasir Putih and Batu prisons. All are maximum security.

In a recent visit to Nusakambangan, Law and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsuddin said that he would transfer almost 2000 inmates from Jakarta to prisons on the island as most Jakarta prisons were overcrowded, while the island remains spacious.

Penitentiary Director General Sihabudin said the relocation process would take up to three months

Jakarta drug cases level in 2012: Police

The number of drug cases in 2012 has remained stable, the Jakarta Police reports.

The police recorded 4,836 drug cases this year, a rise of only 0.39 percent from the 4,817 cases last year.

“We have managed to complete all the 4,836 cases we were handling, 100 percent,” Jakarta Police chief Putut Eko Bayuseno said on Thursday at the Jakarta Police headquarters.

The police arrested 5,941 drug suspects this year, a 1.14 percent increase from the 5,874 suspects last year.

Based on investigations, the police concluded that most drugs were produced outside the country.

“It is more profitable for them to produce the drugs in their home countries rather than here,” Putut said.

Evidences comprising 1.63 kilograms of marijuana, 3.28 kilograms of heroin, 1.2 kilograms of cocaine, 511.9 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, 113 kilograms of ecstasy powder, 1.85 million of ecstasy pills and 119 psychotropic pills were seized throughout 2012, kompas.com reported

South Africa: 7 die during fitness tests

South African media say provincial authorities are investigating the deaths of seven job-seekers who collapsed in the heat while undergoing a fitness test for positions as traffic officers.

The chief transport official for KwaZulu-Natal province, Willies Mchunu, has suspended further test in the meantime.

The state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation reported that several tens of thousands of people took the fitness test late last week, even though only 90 jobs were available. They were required to run four kilometers (2.5 miles) in temperatures of more than 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), and many collapsed from dehydration and heat exhaustion. Some received hospital treatment.

South Africa's official statistics show that the unemployment rate is 25 percent, an indication why so many were applying for the 90 jobs.