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Irshad Manji book tour in Indonesia runs into trouble with Islamic ‘thugs’

Police crackdowns and attacks by religious extremists have attempted to derail the book tour of famed Muslim Canadian author Irshad Manji through Indonesia, a country she previously described as a symbol of “meaningful moderation in Islam.”

“Four years ago, I came to Indonesia and experienced a nation of tolerance, openness and pluralism,” said Ms. Manji. “Things have changed.”

On Wednesday, after five tumultuous days of security threats and cancelled events, a book discussion with Ms. Manji was violently attacked by religious extremists believed to be with the Indonesian Mujahidin Council. “As the gangsters shouted, ‘Where is Manji?’ citizens shielded my body with theirs,” said Ms. Manji in a statement she posted to Twitter on Thursday.

A colleague of Ms. Manji, Emily Rees, was rushed to hospital after her arm was struck by a metal bar. Two other attendees suffered head injuries.

Raised in Vancouver, Ms. Manji rose to prominence as an advocate for progressive Islam with her 2003 book The Trouble With Islam Today. Most controversially to many of her religious critics, she is openly lesbian.

Ms. Manji was in the South Asian country to promote the Indonesian release of Allah, Liberty and Love. Amid laying out a blueprint for Muslim reformation modelled on the U.S. civil rights movement, the book singles out Indonesia as a model Muslim society. Describing a 2008 event in Jakarta, Ms. Manji writes about a transsexual “who proudly announced in front of Islamists that, post-surgery, she’s fought for the right to wear hijab.”Trouble began last Friday, the first day of the book tour, when police shut down a talk at a Jakarta cultural centre after demonstrators with the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) massed outside the building. “Things got so serious that organizers had to pull me to another floor as cops blocked the elevators,” wrote Ms. Manji in a Facebook post. The FPI accused Ms. Manji of conspiring to spread homosexuality among Indonesian Muslims.

If “we didn’t disperse it, it might claim casualties,” senior police commissioner Imam Sugiono later told Indonesia’s Tempo News.

“I actually started my event with the observation that although I’d been in Jakarta for only one day, I had noticed a much more conservative vibe in the city … and only a few minutes later the disruption and ultimate hijacking of the event began,” Ms. Manji later told Radio Australia.

Subsequent events featured security details of Indonesian soldiers. Many organizers, spooked by security threats, abruptly cancelled appearances by the author. On Wednesday, a planned talk at Gadjah Mada University — one of Indonesia’s most prominent universities — was cancelled by university officials after on-campus protests. “[Gadjah Mada] deems it important to be extra careful, given the recent unfavourable security situations,” a university spokesman told the Jakarta Post.

Two high-end Jakarta hotels refused to house the author.
‘We never accept you in Indonesia, please go back to your Lesbianland’

Earlier this week, there were reports that Ms. Manji’s website had been blocked by Indonesian authorities. “Citizens have reported to me that their police and government are capitulating to the thugs,” said Ms. Manji on Thursday.

Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, with 204 million Muslims among a population of 240 million. Authorities have worked hard to curb the religious extremism overtaking other Muslim countries. Nevertheless, the country, which is governed by a secular constitution, has not been immune to scattered incidents of religious violence and jihadism. In 2009, the Indonesian province of Aceh made adultery punishable by stoning.

Ms. Manji frequently receives death threats and the windows of her New York apartment are made of bulletproof glass. “We never accept you in Indonesia, please go back to your Lesbianland,” reads an anonymous post on her Twitter feed.

In December, Ms. Manji was speaking in Amsterdam when the event was stormed by 20 men waving flags screaming “Allahu Akbar.” The men were reportedly with Shariah4Belgium, an Islamist group calling for the imposition of Islamic law in Europe.

Before leaving Indonesia, Ms. Manji said she was cheered by the anti-extremism she saw among attendees at her events. “The real story here is that a new generation of Muslims is increasingly fed up with the deference to these gangsters,” she told Radio Australia.

SOURCE:NATIONAL POST

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