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Indonesian Muslims marched to the heavily guarded French embassy in the Indonesian capital to protest the president of France and his strong support for secular laws that consider cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as protected speech.
Waving white flags with the declaration of Islamic faith, more than 2,000 protesters, many of them dressed in white Islamic robes, filled a major thoroughfare in central Jakarta.
Authorities blocked the streets leading to the embassy, where more than 1,000 police and soldiers were deployed in and around the building with barbed wire barricades.
The protesters chanted “God is great” and “Boycott French products” as they marched. Their banners and banners hit French President Emmanuel Macron, and some protesters trampled on Macron’s posters in blocked streets, while others expressed anger by burning Macron’s portraits.
Small protests also broke out in other Indonesian cities, such as Surabaya, Makassar, Medan and Bandung.
On Saturday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo strongly condemned the terrorist attacks in Paris and Nice, as well as Macron’s comments that were deemed offensive against Islam and Muslims.
At a national memorial for a teacher who was beheaded near Paris last month, Macron said the teacher “was the victim of a conspiracy of stupidity, hatred, lies … I hate the other … I hate who we are deeply” .
Widodo said freedom of speech that tarnishes the honor, sanctity and sanctity of religious values and symbols cannot be justified and must be stopped.
“Linking religion to terrorist acts is a big mistake,” Widodo said. “Terrorism is terrorism, terrorists are terrorists, terrorism has nothing to do with any religion.”
The teacher, Samuel Paty, was attacked outside his school on October 16 by a teenage Chechen refugee for showing the cartoons to students. Subsequently, the police shot dead the attacker.
Macron has been accused of spreading anti-Muslim sentiments while praising the teacher.
The protest organizer Slamet Ma’arif told the crowd, including members of the Islamic Defenders Front vigilante group, that Macron was being hostile to Islam and called for a boycott of French products.
“It hurt us deeply and we demand that he retract his words and apologize to Muslims around the world,” he said.
Yesterday’s protests ended peacefully in the afternoon.
The French embassy said Macron made a distinction between Islam and militancy.
“President Emmanuel Macron made it clear that there was no intention to generalize, and clearly distinguished between the majority of French Muslims and the militant and separatist minority that is hostile to the values of the French Republic,” the embassy statement said. – AP
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