Muslim coalition refuses mosque built by TNI

MEDAN: A Muslim organization is rejecting a mosque built by the Bukit Barisan I Military Regional Command to replace the mosque it demolished last year to make way for an elite real estate.

The North Sumatra Muslim Forum said the new mosque was not built in exactly at the same place where the old mosque was located.

It was also not built in accordance with an agreement between Bukit Barisan I Military Command chief Maj. Gen. Lodewijk Paulus and representatives of the alliance, according its leader.

North Sumatra Muslim Forum chairman Indra Suheri said that an invitation to a cornerstone-laying event on Thursday said that the Rp 2.5 billion (US$275,000) mosque would be named Al Ikhlas, which Lodewijk, in a previous meeting, did not mention.

Hundreds of Muslims have held Friday prayers among the debris of the mosque over the last year to protest its demolition.

Lodewijk said that the mosque was his own idea and no money from the real estate developer was used. “The funds come from the servants of God,” he told reporters after laying the mosque’s cornerstone on Thursday.