Indonesian Christian Governor jailed for Blasphemy against Islam

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**Humble Guardsman**

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-09/jakartas-outgoing-governor-ahok-found-guilty-in-blasphemy-trial/8509936

An Indonesian court has sentenced the minority Christian governor of Jakarta to two years in prison for blaspheming the Koran at a trial that undermined the country's reputation for practicing a moderate form of Islam.

In a tense trial that was widely seen as a test of religious tolerance in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known as Ahok, was "found to have legitimately and convincingly conducted a criminal act of blasphemy, and because of that we have imposed two years of imprisonment", head judge Dwiarso Budi Santiarto told the court.

Ahok was charged with blasphemy after he said clerics had used a Koranic verse to mislead voters by telling them that Muslims were not allowed to vote for a Christian. He has denied wrongdoing, and said he was not criticising the Koran, but rather the clerics' interpretation of the verse. The sentence was harsher than expected and will come as a shock to many of his supporters. TV news coverage of the scene outside the court showed some supporters weeping. Prosecutors had called for a suspended one-year jail sentence on charges of hate speech. The maximum sentence is four years in prison for hate speech and five years for blasphemy. Judges said he did it deliberately and did not show remorse. Ahok told the court he will appeal the ruling. Thousands of police have been deployed across the capital in case clashes break out between Ahok's supporters and hard-line Islamists who demanded he be sacked and jailed over the allegations. There was no immediate sign of any violence after the court's verdict.

"Both groups will have the opportunity to demonstrate, but we are taking steps to prevent clashes," national police spokesman Setyo Wasisto said earlier.

The Indonesian Government had been criticised for not doing enough to protect religious minorities but President Joko Widodo, a key ally of Ahok, urged restraint over the trial and called for all sides to respect the legal process. Ahok lost his bid for re-election in an April run-off, by far the most divisive and religiously charged election in recent years, to a Muslim rival Anies Baswedan — he will hand over to Mr Baswedan in October.

'Huge setback' for tolerance and minorities

Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch said the guilty verdict against Ahok was "a huge setback" for Indonesia's record of tolerance and for minorities.

"This is bad news for Indonesian minorities," he said. "If someone like Ahok, the governor of the capital, backed by the country's largest political party, ally of the president, can be jailed on groundless accusations, what will others do?"

The tensions whipped up during the Jakarta election have raised concerns about the rising influence of Islamist groups in Indonesia, which is home to sizeable communities of Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and people who adhere to traditional beliefs. The Government said on Monday it would take legal steps to disband Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), a group that seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate, because its activities were creating social tensions and threatening security.

Ahok is a Christian governor for Jakarta in the predominantly Islamic country of Indonesia. He has been regarded as someone fairly free of corruption, or affiliation with corruption, in a notoriously corrupt government. He was favoured to win the election when these accusations were brought forth but regardless of whether or not he would have actually won the election, it is certainly apparent that he was a strong contender for it.

He had accused some of the Imams backing his opponent of misleading the Muslim populace of the region by claiming that Muslims are not allowed to vote for non-Muslims according to Al Maidah of the Qu'arn. To be accused, convicted and sentenced to jail for criticising clerical leaders interpretation of their holy book, not even the book itself, is certainly at odds with a country that purports to practice a moderate form of Islam. I would remind you that this is not Saudi Arabia or any of the countries frequently held up as examples of 'bad' Islamic governments. Indonesia, despite its part in the atrocities of East Timor and internal suppression elsewhere, is supposed to have been regarded as, if not one of the 'good' Islamic states then, certainly one of the 'better' ones.

My personal opinion; being a man accustomed to the liberalism, free speech and freedom of religion that is nurtured and appreciated in most developed secular nations, is that any one should be free to criticise any book, no matter how holy, regardless of how offensive or blasphemous that criticism might be seen as. Certainly that an Islamic nation that considers itself -moderate- cannot forgive a non-Muslim even questioning the interpretation of the books by various clerics points to the conclusion that Islam as a doctrinal faith has a long way to go, either in reformation of the text or reformation of the interpretation of that text, before it can be accepted as compatible with secular society. Laws that allow valid criticism of a faith to be punished, severely punished as we can see, have no place in a society that values the freedom of the individuals that live within it. Censuring opposing views is demonstrably the fast-track route to totalitarianism.

**sebster**

Humble Guardsman wrote:
My personal opinion; being a man accustomed to the liberalism, free speech and freedom of religion that is nurtured and appreciated in most developed secular nations, is that any one should be free to criticise any book, no matter how holy, regardless of how offensive or blasphemous that criticism might be seen as. Certainly that an Islamic nation that considers itself -moderate- cannot forgive a non-Muslim even questioning the interpretation of the books by various clerics points to the conclusion that Islam as a doctrinal faith has a long way to go, either in reformation of the text or reformation of the interpretation of that text, before it can be accepted as compatible with secular society. Laws that allow valid criticism of a faith to be punished, severely punished as we can see, have no place in a society that values the freedom of the individuals that live within it. Censuring opposing views is demonstrably the fast-track route to totalitarianism.

Yeah, these events are straight up fething disastrous for Indonesia.

That said, it's important people don't start with this event and assume it is the normal state of affairs in Indonesia. It is disastrous precisely because it is not how things have operated, but because this may be how they will operate from now on.

The greater context for this is that Ahok was a rising star in Indonesian politics. He was Governor of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital and largest city, a position that normally sets you up for a run at the presidency. The previous Governor of Jakarta, Joko Widodo, is now president.

After he won election, Ahok was seen as a clear threat to socially conservative elements in Indonesian society. It is important to note that he wasn't just Jakarta's second Christian Governor, he was also its first Chinese governor, so there are racial tensions here in addition to religious ones. It is a reactionary response to Indonesia becoming more accepting of its minority groups. That reactionary response was to organise a lot of conservative Muslim leaders to claim the Koran banned Muslims from voting for Christians. Which led to Ahok's response, challenging this interpretation. Which led to a campaign to misrepresent Ahok's statement, editing it to make it appear that he was challenging the Koran itself, and claiming this was blasphemy and needed to be punished.

All of that is unfortunately run of the mill gakky politics in Indonesia, and in many other countries. What is terrible is that this beat up was able to go to court, and even more shocking was the court finding him guilty. That changed this from being a second rate reactionary response, in to a potentially far reaching change to Indonesian society.

**Humble Guardsman**

sebster wrote:

Yeah, these events are straight up fething disastrous for Indonesia.

That said, it's important people don't start with this event and assume it is the normal state of affairs in Indonesia. It is disastrous precisely because it is not how things have operated, but because this may be how they will operate from now on.

Long prison sentences for blasphemy is nothing new to Indonesia.
https://en.tempo.co/read/news/2017/05/10/055874088/Major-Blasphemy-Cases-in-Indonesia

I agree with you that this is regular mudslinging for the country, and that both religious and ethnic tensions are at play here due to Ahok's chinese heritage. That said, it is indicative of how things have been in Indonesia for a long time now. This is merely the most publicised and high-profile incident of it occurring.

**AlchemicalSolution**

I don't see this getting any better any time soon.

China's secularism is less antagonistic towards non domestic Islamism in southeast Asia than the rising tide of Indian Hindu nationalism will be when India starts to flex its regional muscles more.

I may be catastrophizing, but Indian Hindu nationalism could do for the region what Iranian Shiism and the existence of Israel do for the Middle East; catalyse hardcore elements within the Saudi brand of Wahabbism that are present and growing in the region (spread through Saudi backed Madrases propping up all over the place).

It does seem that the traditional holding up of Malaysia and Indonesia as examples of Muslim majority countries which are tolerant and secular is not going to carry water much longer.

**kronk**

Humble Guardsman wrote:
sebster wrote:

Yeah, these events are straight up fething disastrous for Indonesia.

That said, it's important people don't start with this event and assume it is the normal state of affairs in Indonesia. It is disastrous precisely because it is not how things have operated, but because this may be how they will operate from now on.

Long prison sentences for blasphemy is nothing new to Indonesia.
https://en.tempo.co/read/news/2017/05/10/055874088/Major-Blasphemy-Cases-in-Indonesia

Yep. Adding Indonesia to the Do Not Visit list. Right behind Hungary, Venezuela, and Rhode Island. fething Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island. Bunch of lying liars!

**Frazzled**

Add Cloudcroft New Mexico. Cloudcroft is actually pretty awesome , but you have to drive through the real world equivalent of Mordor to get there, and it will test the strength of your soul.*

*Luckily I had my soul removed at the orientation in law school-they were running a special and it was free!

**NinthMusketeer**

Looks like I made it in before the posts trying to justify discrimination against Muslims. Because I'm sure that people will look at this and try to spin it into something about the whole religion being intolerant.

**Frazzled**

NinthMusketeer wrote:
Looks like I made it in before the posts trying to justify discrimination against Muslims. Because I'm sure that people will look at this and try to spin it into something about the whole religion being intolerant.

Yes but you posted it after the post justifying discrimination against New Mexico and vulture population. When driving, they follow you.

One can note the alarming act here. Whats interesting is the post about rising Hindu "nationalism" for lack of a better word.
How is that going to reverb against the (pardon the pun) Chinese Wall? Are we seeing the rise of religious tribalism in Asia, ir is this just a meh event?

Me-sounds like the Imams were using religion to torpedo a less corrupt candidate than the ones they are connected to.

Its not religion...it greed.

**jmurph**

Religion being used as a cover for corruption and power plays? Color me shocked!

**AlchemicalSolution**

NinthMusketeer wrote:
Looks like I made it in before the posts trying to justify discrimination against Muslims. Because I'm sure that people will look at this and try to spin it into something about the whole religion being intolerant.

Those are two different things, you can do the latter, just substitute 'identify as' for 'spin into', without necessarily or even implicitly doing the former.

A critique of Islam, even one which determines the whole religion to be intolerant, is not the same thing as justification or advocacy for discrimination against Muslims.

Insofar as any ideology as self contradictory and incoherent as Islam can be said to be anything, it can be said to be intolerant. You can parse the Koran and the Hadiths and find little bits of justification for a kind of benevolent theocracy (nothing like secularism), but that's as good as it gets, and as bad as it gets is really as bad as it can be; genocide and totalitarian theocratic facism. It's great that the majority of Muslims worldwide don't act in accordance with that. It's not so great that they can't provide a powerful theological argument for not doing so by the lights of their holy books and writings, or the example of their so called prophet.

None of that has anything to do with discriminating against Muslims. At most it's an implicit endorsement of discrimination against Islam as an idea, which is a good thing. If you can't discriminate between ideas you can't know a right action from a wrong one.

Ideas <> People.

**NinthMusketeer**

AlchemicalSolution wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:
Looks like I made it in before the posts trying to justify discrimination against Muslims. Because I'm sure that people will look at this and try to spin it into something about the whole religion being intolerant.

Those are two different things, you can do the latter, just substitute 'identify as' for 'spin into', without necessarily or even implicitly doing the former.

A critique of Islam, even one which determines the whole religion to be intolerant, is not the same thing as justification or advocacy for discrimination against Muslims.

Insofar as any ideology as self contradictory and incoherent as Islam can be said to be anything, it can be said to be intolerant. You can parse the Koran and the Hadiths and find little bits of justification for a kind of benevolent theocracy (nothing like secularism), but that's as good as it gets, and as bad as it gets is really as bad as it can be; genocide and totalitarian theocratic facism. It's great that the majority of Muslims worldwide don't act in accordance with that. It's not so great that they can't provide a powerful theological argument for not doing so by the lights of their holy books and writings, or the example of their so called prophet.

None of that has anything to do with discriminating against Muslims. At most it's an implicit endorsement of discrimination against Islam as an idea, which is a good thing. If you can't discriminate between ideas you can't know a right action from a wrong one.

Ideas <> People.

That's a lot of nice talk, but when the judgement is made that a religion is inherently intolerant (more so than others), people of that religion will then be discriminated against. That's simply the reality of the situation whether we like it or not. And that's putting aside that everything you said also applies to Christianity and other religions besides. So either the judgement based on that reasoning is not limited to Islam or there is an inherent bias against Islam that is causing it to be selectively applied, which is kind-of my point.

**sebster**

Humble Guardsman wrote:
Long prison sentences for blasphemy is nothing new to Indonesia.
https://en.tempo.co/read/news/2017/05/10/055874088/Major-Blasphemy-Cases-in-Indonesia

What's different is that here it is being applied to a powerful politician who was believed to have the potential to rise even higher. He's a close ally of the president. And now blasphemy laws are used to cut him out of politics.

I agree with you that this is regular mudslinging for the country, and that both religious and ethnic tensions are at play here due to Ahok's chinese heritage. That said, it is indicative of how things have been in Indonesia for a long time now. This is merely the most publicised and high-profile incident of it occurring.

**SagesStone**

kronk wrote:
Humble Guardsman wrote:
sebster wrote:

Yeah, these events are straight up fething disastrous for Indonesia.

That said, it's important people don't start with this event and assume it is the normal state of affairs in Indonesia. It is disastrous precisely because it is not how things have operated, but because this may be how they will operate from now on.

Long prison sentences for blasphemy is nothing new to Indonesia.
https://en.tempo.co/read/news/2017/05/10/055874088/Major-Blasphemy-Cases-in-Indonesia

Yep. Adding Indonesia to the Do Not Visit list. Right behind Hungary, Venezuela, and Rhode Island. fething Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island. Bunch of lying liars!

Wait, wait, wait. It's not?
*Adds Rhode Island to the list*

**feeder**

Frazzled wrote:

Its not religion...it greed.

This is true in almost every case across the world. Religion is the wooden horse used to get people on board with ideas that naked greed would not.

edit: fix quote derp

**LordofHats**

sebster wrote:

No, the political element is key here. Do you know why the people who pushed this are still angry, and wanting the sentence increased to five years? Because that's the length of time that will ban Ahok from ever running for office again.

I'm not trying to make light of previous blasphemy charges, that law is always abhorrent, but this really is about shutting minorities out of government.

His ethnicity is probably more significant than his religion over all. Indonesia kind of conflates being Malay with being Muslim, so there's a strong religion angle to it to but in for a long time the focus of these things has been on ethnic divisions more than religious ones and having an ethnic Chinese guy coming up like that is pretty new. They're something like 1% of the population and for those who didn't catch it on the news for whatever reason the riots in 1998 were targeted at the government of the time, but the Chinese who are generally resented for the typical reasons you might resent a well off upper class ethnic minority were heavily associated with the problems in the country. Many Chinese-Indonesians left the country after the riots, and its commonly seen as a good thing there.

**Easy E**

Nationalism is on the rise in the world again. The last time we stopped its rise involved a world war. What will it take this time?

**LordofHats**

I wouldn't really say WWII stopped nationalism. There was the whole Cold War thing that followed, and that was pretty nationalistic.

**Kilkrazy**

I would say the Cold War was very much about political ideologies, not nationalism. The point was to organise separate nations into trans-national groups that included highly disparate national identities. Both sides had asians, arabs, europeans and africans recruited to their regional power bases.

**NinthMusketeer**

Easy E wrote:
Nationalism is on the rise in the world again. The last time we stopped its rise involved a world war. What will it take this time?

Modern nationalism movements we are seeing in politics seem far more on the isolationist (or more accurately anti-global) end. To me it looks like a response to globalization and the difficulties it has brought on a large number of people; citizens want their country to be a bit more cut off from others like it used to be because things were more-or-less better back then for many people. However I don't think globalization is the direct cause though so much as it's benefits went disproportionately to the wealthy and its downsides disproportionately to the middle class. From my perspective I am seeing the idea that the economy is rigged for against the common man becoming more and more accepted. Hell, there's a commercial for potting soil that uses the phrase "so rich you should file a tax return!" This is important because anger tends to be directed to an 'outsider' group, right now that is immigrants but once immigration is cracked down on, walls are built, and unions are left yet nothing gets better I think 'the wealthy' as an outsider group will be the next in line for the rage-dump. Which is all to say that I think the current nationalistic trend is heading towards economic 'civil war' rather than an actual war. At the end of the day, no one thinks WW3 is a good idea.

**LordofHats**

Kilkrazy wrote:
I would say the Cold War was very much about political ideologies, not nationalism. The point was to organise separate nations into trans-national groups that included highly disparate national identities. Both sides had asians, arabs, europeans and africans recruited to their regional power bases.

True, but those trans-national alliances were forged by ties and bonds deeply tied in with nationalist sentiment. Capitalist nations took pride in being capitalist. Communist nations took pride in being communist. Capitalist nations teamed up with capitalist nations because they were capitalist and opposed communism, even to the point of ignoring major parts of national ideology for the sake of the alliance. It's certainly different from what was going on in WWII, but WWII was also built of transnational alliances that found common groud in ideological similarities while ignoring their differences.

The nature of the Cold War conflict was distinct, but what drove it wasn't such imo. EDIT: Most certainly the US descended into an until then unprecedented amount of nationalistic fervor until the early to mid 60s.

**Easy E**

NinthMusketeer wrote:
Easy E wrote:
Nationalism is on the rise in the world again. The last time we stopped its rise involved a world war. What will it take this time?
Modern nationalism movements we are seeing in politics seem far more on the isolationist (or more accurately anti-global) end. To me it looks like a response to globalization and the difficulties it has brought on a large number of people; citizens want their country to be a bit more cut off from others like it used to be because things were more-or-less better back then for many people. However I don't think globalization is the direct cause though so much as it's benefits went disproportionately to the wealthy and its downsides disproportionately to the middle class. F

rom my perspective I am seeing the idea that the economy is rigged for against the common man becoming more and more accepted. This is important because anger tends to be directed to an 'outsider' group, right now that is immigrants but once immigration is cracked down on, walls are built, and unions are left yet nothing gets better I think 'the wealthy' as an outsider group will be the next in line for the rage-dump. Which is all to say that I think the current nationalistic trend is heading towards economic 'civil war' rather than an actual war.

At the end of the day, no one thinks WW3 is a good idea.

I think you are correct, but economic war quickly escalates into real war when one side starts losing.

A lot of people didn't think World War I or World War II were good ideas either..... but then they happened.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

AlchemicalSolution wrote:
It does seem that the traditional holding up of Malaysia and Indonesia as examples of Muslim majority countries which are tolerant and secular is not going to carry water much longer.

The secular and tolerant Muslim-majority countries are:
- Albania
- Certainly others but I don't know them

.

**Tactical_Spam**

Easy E wrote:
Nationalism is on the rise in the world again. The last time we stopped its rise involved a world war. What will it take this time?

Someone to realize that history repeats itself.

**LordofHats**

Well I couldn't call Albania tolerant, they have so much ethnic tension you could cut it with a butter knife

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Not on religious ground though.

**AlchemicalSolution**

NinthMusketeer wrote:
AlchemicalSolution wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:
Looks like I made it in before the posts trying to justify discrimination against Muslims. Because I'm sure that people will look at this and try to spin it into something about the whole religion being intolerant.

Those are two different things, you can do the latter, just substitute 'identify as' for 'spin into', without necessarily or even implicitly doing the former.

A critique of Islam, even one which determines the whole religion to be intolerant, is not the same thing as justification or advocacy for discrimination against Muslims.

Insofar as any ideology as self contradictory and incoherent as Islam can be said to be anything, it can be said to be intolerant. You can parse the Koran and the Hadiths and find little bits of justification for a kind of benevolent theocracy (nothing like secularism), but that's as good as it gets, and as bad as it gets is really as bad as it can be; genocide and totalitarian theocratic facism. It's great that the majority of Muslims worldwide don't act in accordance with that. It's not so great that they can't provide a powerful theological argument for not doing so by the lights of their holy books and writings, or the example of their so called prophet.

None of that has anything to do with discriminating against Muslims. At most it's an implicit endorsement of discrimination against Islam as an idea, which is a good thing. If you can't discriminate between ideas you can't know a right action from a wrong one.

Ideas <> People.
That's a lot of nice talk, but when the judgement is made that a religion is inherently intolerant (more so than others), people of that religion will then be discriminated against. That's simply the reality of the situation whether we like it or not. And that's putting aside that everything you said also applies to Christianity and other religions besides. So either the judgement based on that reasoning is not limited to Islam or there is an inherent bias against Islam that is causing it to be selectively applied, which is kind-of my point.

I advise you to be sure about the point you're trying to make, because 'kind-of' knowing what you think isn't a good look.

I didn't say anything about Christianity one way or the other. Stick to what is actually being discussed, that way you limit the damage you do to your credibility when you get it wrong, which you have. Even if I conceded that it was true that discrimination against individual Muslims would be an unavoidable consequence of criticising the doctrine of Islam, that wouldn't constitute adequate reason to avoid making the criticism. What is true matters. It so happens that it's perfectly possible (in fact it is ultimately necessary) that Islam be open to criticism, satire and parody without Muslims being necessarily discriminated against as a consequence.

The only protection you, or I, or any given Muslim, or anyone else has against the naked abuse of power by malevolent forces, which is what you mean when you say discrimination, is the truth. If you put your eyes out rather than see that which is offensive to you, don't be surprised that you're unable to protest the greater offense which takes place next, you being blind. It's not just intellectual cowardice to suggest that an ideology be spared criticism because of what might follow from the pursuit of truth, it's immoral.

Read the Koran, and get familiar with the Hadiths. The extent to which a Muslim is tolerant of the religion of others is essentially the extent to which he is not a devout Muslim.

**LordofHats**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Not on religious ground though.

Fair enough XD

EDIT: Though I would point out that much like Indonesia, religion and ethnicity in Albania are highly conflated.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

LordofHats wrote:
EDIT: Though I would point out that much like Indonesia, religion and ethnicity in Albania are highly conflated.

I didn't notice anything like this when I was there, and that doesn't seem to be confirmed by Wikipedia. Are you sure?

**NinthMusketeer**

AlchemicalSolution wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:
AlchemicalSolution wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:
Looks like I made it in before the posts trying to justify discrimination against Muslims. Because I'm sure that people will look at this and try to spin it into something about the whole religion being intolerant.

Those are two different things, you can do the latter, just substitute 'identify as' for 'spin into', without necessarily or even implicitly doing the former.

A critique of Islam, even one which determines the whole religion to be intolerant, is not the same thing as justification or advocacy for discrimination against Muslims.

Insofar as any ideology as self contradictory and incoherent as Islam can be said to be anything, it can be said to be intolerant. You can parse the Koran and the Hadiths and find little bits of justification for a kind of benevolent theocracy (nothing like secularism), but that's as good as it gets, and as bad as it gets is really as bad as it can be; genocide and totalitarian theocratic facism. It's great that the majority of Muslims worldwide don't act in accordance with that. It's not so great that they can't provide a powerful theological argument for not doing so by the lights of their holy books and writings, or the example of their so called prophet.

None of that has anything to do with discriminating against Muslims. At most it's an implicit endorsement of discrimination against Islam as an idea, which is a good thing. If you can't discriminate between ideas you can't know a right action from a wrong one.

Ideas <> People.
That's a lot of nice talk, but when the judgement is made that a religion is inherently intolerant (more so than others), people of that religion will then be discriminated against. That's simply the reality of the situation whether we like it or not. And that's putting aside that everything you said also applies to Christianity and other religions besides. So either the judgement based on that reasoning is not limited to Islam or there is an inherent bias against Islam that is causing it to be selectively applied, which is kind-of my point.

I advise you to be sure about the point you're trying to make, because 'kind-of' knowing what you think isn't a good look.

I didn't say anything about Christianity one way or the other. Stick to what is actually being discussed, that way you limit the damage you do to your credibility when you get it wrong, which you have. Even if I conceded that it was true that discrimination against individual Muslims would be an unavoidable consequence of criticising the doctrine of Islam, that wouldn't constitute adequate reason to avoid making the criticism. What is true matters. It so happens that it's perfectly possible (in fact it is ultimately necessary) that Islam be open to criticism, satire and parody without Muslims being necessarily discriminated against as a consequence.

The only protection you, or I, or any given Muslim, or anyone else has against the naked abuse of power by malevolent forces, which is what you mean when you say discrimination, is the truth. If you put your eyes out rather than see that which is offensive to you, don't be surprised that you're unable to protest the greater offense which takes place next, you being blind. It's not just intellectual cowardice to suggest that an ideology be spared criticism because of what might follow from the pursuit of truth, it's immoral.

Read the Koran, and get familiar with the Hadiths. The extent to which a Muslim is tolerant of the religion of others is essentially the extent to which he is not a devout Muslim.

So I say that if a holy book being intolerant makes a religion intolerant then Christiantiy, among others, would be also. You respond that I am wrong and Islam is intolerant because their book is. I can see that this has already descended into 'find reasons to justify a pre existing bias' terriorty, so I'll just leave you to continue justifying discrimination.

**LordofHats**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
LordofHats wrote:
EDIT: Though I would point out that much like Indonesia, religion and ethnicity in Albania are highly conflated.

I didn't notice anything like this when I was there, and that doesn't seem to be confirmed by Wikipedia. Are you sure?

IDK. Maybe I'm thinking of somewhere else?