JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Tens of thousands of hard-line Muslims marched Friday on the centre of the Indonesian capital to demand the arrest of its minority-Christian governor for alleged blasphemy.
Fearing violence, police put on a show of force supported by soldiers and public order officers, while embassies closed, some shops shuttered and Jakarta’s normally traffic-clogged streets were nearly empty of cars.
The predominantly male demonstrators, most wearing white shirts and skull caps, massed at the Istiqlal Mosque for the protest following weekly Friday prayers and marched on the nearby presidential palace. Large protests also took place in other cities including Medan on Sumatra, Makassar in Sulawesi and Malang in East Java.
Associated Press reporters witnessed members of an Islamic student group throwing plastic water bottles and other objects at riot police, but generally the massive demonstration appeared to have gone off without major incident.
The accusation of blasphemy against Jakarta Gov. Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic Chinese and minority Christian who is an ally of the country’s president, has galvanized his political opponents in the Muslim-majority nation of 250 million, and given a notorious group of hard-liners a national stage...
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