Paper Edition | Page: 8
Sept. 19, p. 12
Amid massive protests condemning the distribution of an anti-Muslim film, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Tuesday he planned to propose an international protocol banning blasphemy against religious symbols.
Yudhoyono held a plenary Cabinet meeting to discuss fallout of the circulation of the video Innocence of Muslims over the Internet.
“I want Foreign Minister [Marty Natalegawa] to present the latest developments on the political and security situation in the world following the release of a video clip that denigrates a certain religion,” the President told ministers upon opening the meeting.
“The situation is, both directly and indirectly, correlated to the recent security situation in Indonesia,” Yudhoyono added.
Following worldwide violent protests against the controversial movie, a rally organized by several Islamic mass organizations at the US Embassy in Jakarta turned violent when protesters started throwing rocks at the police deployed to safeguard the protest on Monday.
Your comments:
SBY should first look what is happening is his own backyard and solve that before proposing such protocols for the rest of the world.
Clean up the world but start with yourself.
APH Mulders
“The protocol will be proposed through the UN. This should make it clear that freedom of information and expression must not violate or hurt certain religions,” Djoko said on Tuesday at a press conference, adding that freedom without limits would harm the national interest.
We all know that the UN is a body without power as is shown by Syria and on so many other occasions. At least the proposal is a safe bet to be noted without any commitments. God forbid that SBY’s future UN ambitions might be hurt by a hard stand.
Jorith Arbier
No such laws are needed, what people who believe in God, as do I, realize God is big enough and powerful enough to look after Himself, He doesn’t need bands of idiots committing violence in His name.
In every holy text He calls on mankind to have faith, I believe this includes having the faith to know He doesn’t need my help or anyone else’s.
So if you are a true believer, you should be calm and pity the fools who offend God and his messengers and have faith, they will not escape His justice and only He has the right to administer it!
Rob
I quote: “This should make it clear that freedom of information and expression must not violate or hurt certain religions.”
Sorry, you cannot have both. Freedom of expression means that you can speak against anything or anyone. The next step would be to ban any speech that hurt any government appointee. SBY needs to clean his own house first.
Sheldon Archer
