Niniek Karmini, WOR News, July 4, hosted2.ap.org/WORAM/GeneralNews/Article_2010-07-04-AS-Indonesia-War-on-Christians/id-e44ac25fab8b4947b0d6ca1d9fe95488
Days after rumours spread across the industrial city of Bekasi that Christians were conducting a mass baptism, hard-line Islamic leaders called for local mosques to create a youth guard to act as moral police and put a quick stop to forced conversions.
They started training early Saturday morning, around 100 young men turning out in a field in Bekasi wearing martial arts uniforms. Leaders stressed that there was no plan to arm them, but they do not shy away from saying they’ll act essentially as thugs.
“We’re doing this because we want to strike fear in the hearts of Christians who behave in such a way,” said Murhali Barda, who heads the local chapter of the Islamic Defenders Front, which pushes for the implementation of Islamic-based laws in Bekasi and other parts of the archipelagic nation. “If they refuse to stop what they’re doing, we’re ready to fight.”
Although this secular country, with more Muslims than any other in the world, has a long history of religious tolerance, a small extremist fringe — of which the front is the vanguard — has become more vocal in recent years as it tries to root out everything it considers blasphemous.