V

ice President Jusuf Kalla has urged mosque managers to use loudspeakers accordingly in the wake of the anti-Chinese riot in Tanjung Balai, North Sumatra.

“The problem that we always talk about revolves around loudspeakers,” Kalla said as quoted by tempo.co on Thursday.

The riot, which resulted in the torching of several Buddhists and Confucian temples and pagodas, in Tanjung Balai has been blamed on social media messages following an argument over the volume of a mosque loudspeaker. Kalla said mosque authorities often turned up the volume of Quranic recitations prior to the adzan (call to prayer).

“[Quranic] recitations go on for 30 minutes, but actually it only takes people five minutes to arrive at mosques after adzan,” he said.