Posted on 12/01/2016 7:32:04 PM PST by marshmallow
Last month 100,000 people protested over the alleged blasphemy of the city's Christian governor
Foreign governments are warning citizens in Indonesia to stay away from central Jakarta ahead of a huge rally against the capital’s minority Christian governor.
The United States, Japan and Australia issued advisories highlighting the possibility of Friday’s protest turning violent or the risk extremists could stage an attack.
A related protest on November 4 drew more than 100,000 people demanding the arrest of Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, who is being prosecuted for blasphemy, a criminal offence in Muslim-majority Indonesia.
After nightfall, hard-liners clashed with police, with one death and dozens injured.
Security plans call for a heavy police and military presence and organisers have agreed to concentrate the rally around the national monument in the city to limit disruption.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
Jakarta is a scary place. Even Brunei feels less oppressive
I was in Jakarta about 15 years ago when the blind President was overthrown. It was coming down and I could not get a flight out of the country so I flew to Bali and sat it out there.
I’ve been to a couple of conferences there when I was an academic. I never liked Jakarta. K.L is worse.
Never been to KL. Singapore seemed very clean, but strict rules that MUST be observed. Japan was very nice. Taiwan seemed nice. Nepal was nice before the Maoists took over, don’t know now, but expect is a hell hole. Tibet was a chinese police state, I absolutely hated it. The border guards would push you around at rifle gunpoint to get you to line up for Customs processing. There seemed to be a military site for every village that was clearly guns pointed inward for control. The Tibetan peasants were very afraid of the Chinese Military. I was too.
Tibet is not like the rest of China. You could live in Shanghai or Beijing and be freer than NYC. Other than air pollution Chinese cities can be really nice
Malaysia and Indonesia just seem to be under a great dark cloud. Nobody you meet there looks happy. Everyone is sad, angry or despondent - at least my opinion. Strangely, Turkey didn’t feel like when I was there so I don’t think it is an Islam thing though it may be. Singapore and Thailand are great as long as you obey the law. I got fined $100 dollars or so in Singapore for the trivial offense of having too much chewing gum in my backpack.
Brunei is an absolute police state. A person I knew several years ago took a 1 year position at the university. He asked a hotel clerk which bus stop to get off at to attend Mass at the LEGAL cathedral and was arrested and imprisoned for an offense to Islam - no good Muslim should know that - and it took him nearly 40 days to get out of jail. He broke his contract and returned to Australia
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