Surabaya Muslims urge govt to impose sharia Surabaya Muslims protest price hikes, urge govt to quit IMF and to impose sharia SURABAYA, East Java (Agencies): Some 1,000 Muslim activists from the Hizbut Tahrir (Party of Liberation) marched through the city here on Saturday to demand the government to overturn recent hikes in fuel and utility prices, exit the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and impose sharia, agencies reported. AP reported that the protesters had called for the imposition of sharia (Islamic law) in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
They claimed its application would prevent prices from rising beyond the reach of the country's legions of poor. The government hiked fuel, electricity and telephone prices by up to 22 percent last week to meet demands by the country's international lenders, mainly the IMF, to reduce budget deficits and increase economic growth.
The increases have sparked several days of demonstrations by workers and students in several cites across the country, but by Indonesian standards the protests have been small. Protest organizer Fakih Syarid said the government should run the economy according to Islamic principles. "We must apply a strong system to solve the problem of price hikes, and the answer is in sharia," he said without elaborating.
Sharia is based on the Koran, along with the sayings and actions of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. It regulates many aspects of public and personal life, including the economy.
AFP reported that they also urged Jakarta to abandon the IMF-sponsored economic recovery program. They derided the IMF's support for the price hikes as part of its US$4.8 billion economic recovery program for the archipelago, one of the nations hardest hit by the 1997-98 regional financial crisis. "The people suffer, the IMF laugh." read one banner. "The IMF goes, the people are happy," said another.
The government has refused to roll back the utility increases, but said it would spend millions of dollars on schemes to cushion the hikes' impact on the poor.
Source: The JakartaPost 12 January 2003Posted on Jan 12, 2003, 2:18 PM
