Beheading of Christian Schoolgirls Sparks Concerns About Religious Strife
Patrick Goodenough
International Editor
(CNSNews.com) - Indonesian security forces remained on high alert and religious leaders appealed for calm in the nation's Central Sulawesi province following the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls at the weekend.
Community leaders sought to downplay religion as a motivating factor in the crime, although observers noted that the severed head of one of the girls had been found several miles from the scene of the attack, outside a church.
The timing of the attack may also be significant, coming just days before the end of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month. Numerous previous attacks on Christians in Indonesia have occurred during Ramadan.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono himself suggested that some elements in the Sulawesi city of Poso were bent on "maintain[ing] the hostility and conflict" of the past.
In Sulawesi and another province, Maluku, thousands of people died in clashes between Muslims and Christians between 1999 and 2002. (A minor dispute in Maluku at the end of Ramadan triggered the violence in 1999.) The two regions have sizeable Christian populations in what is otherwise a predominantly Muslim nation.
Government-sponsored peace agreements eventually were signed in a bid to end the violence, which was characterized by some as "sectarian" and by others as part of an orchestrated anti-Christian "jihad" by Islamist fighters shipped in from Indonesia's most populous island, Java.
Despite the peace deals, violence has occasionally flared since then in Sulawesi, where 22 people were killed in a market place bombing last May. Religious harmony has also been strained by the forced closure of scores of churches elsewhere in the country, and the jailing of several Christians. more....
Of course, we're not hearing much about this kind of thing. Can't have us believe that Muslim is not a "religion of peace."
Patrick Goodenough
International Editor
(CNSNews.com) - Indonesian security forces remained on high alert and religious leaders appealed for calm in the nation's Central Sulawesi province following the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls at the weekend.
Community leaders sought to downplay religion as a motivating factor in the crime, although observers noted that the severed head of one of the girls had been found several miles from the scene of the attack, outside a church.
The timing of the attack may also be significant, coming just days before the end of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month. Numerous previous attacks on Christians in Indonesia have occurred during Ramadan.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono himself suggested that some elements in the Sulawesi city of Poso were bent on "maintain[ing] the hostility and conflict" of the past.
In Sulawesi and another province, Maluku, thousands of people died in clashes between Muslims and Christians between 1999 and 2002. (A minor dispute in Maluku at the end of Ramadan triggered the violence in 1999.) The two regions have sizeable Christian populations in what is otherwise a predominantly Muslim nation.
Government-sponsored peace agreements eventually were signed in a bid to end the violence, which was characterized by some as "sectarian" and by others as part of an orchestrated anti-Christian "jihad" by Islamist fighters shipped in from Indonesia's most populous island, Java.
Despite the peace deals, violence has occasionally flared since then in Sulawesi, where 22 people were killed in a market place bombing last May. Religious harmony has also been strained by the forced closure of scores of churches elsewhere in the country, and the jailing of several Christians. more....
Of course, we're not hearing much about this kind of thing. Can't have us believe that Muslim is not a "religion of peace."
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