INDONESIA: MUSLIM FLOCK TO SURABAYA TO PRAY FOR PEACE IN THE COUNTRY'S BIGGEST ANIT-IRAQ WAR EVENT

Record ID: 350442

  • Title: INDONESIA: MUSLIM FLOCK TO SURABAYA TO PRAY FOR PEACE IN THE COUNTRY'S BIGGEST ANIT-IRAQ WAR EVENT
  • Date: 9th March 2003
  • Summary: (W3) SURABAYA, INDONESIA (MARCH 9, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. SLV/SV OF MUSLIMS ARRIVING AT SCENE (2 SHOTS) 0.11 2. SV/LAS OF CIVILIAN GUARDS SECURING AREA (2 SHOTS) 0.22 3. SLV/PAN/SV VARIOUS OF PARTICIPANTS (3 SHOTS) 0.41 4. MCU (Bahasa Indonesia) FAIZAH, PARTICIPANT FROM PAMEKASAN, SAYING: "We believe war is unjust. We want peace but p
  • Embargoed: 24th March 2003 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SURABAYA, INDONESIA
  • Country: Indonesia
  • Reuters ID: LVA9FPM3BH9DXT97VXKYH5J0FU5U
  • Story Text: Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have flocked to
    Indonesia's second largest city of Surabaya to pray for
    peace in what was expected to be the country's biggest
    anti-Iraq war event yet.



    Organised by the moderate 40-million strong Nahdlatul
    Ulama (NU), Indonesia's leading Islamic organisation, the
    anti-war prayer on Sunday (March 9) gathered an estimated
    800,000 people from towns across the East Java province.

    Organisers discouraged participants from bringing banners
    and posters, but several official banners on the Iraq issue
    could be seen.

    One of them read "The U.S. unilateral aggression to Iraq
    breaks the world order".

    "We believe war is unjust. We want peace but peace that is
    not achieved through aggression," said Faizah, a participant
    from the town of Pamekasan, a four-hour drive from Surabaya.

    Most participants of the anti-war prayer came from
    different mosque congregations, many had traveled far by buses
    and trucks to provincial capital Surabaya from their
    hometowns.

    Several ministers and guests from middle-Eastern embassies
    also attended the event.

    About 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are
    Muslim. The vast majority are moderate and support government
    moves against Islamic militants suspected of bombing the
    nation's tourist island of Bali killing 202 people last
    October.

    But neither the government nor most Indonesians are
    sympathetic to U.S. policy on Iraq.

    "We have no pretension that every thing we did will always
    succeed because tens of millions of people in the world
    deliver the same call, but still left unheard by the U.S.--
    even the call from its own people," said NU cleric Fachrudin
    Masturoh during his address to the 800,000-strong crowd.

    "We are not defending the regime of Saddam Hussein. We are
    simply defending humanity, justice and world order," he added.


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