'Insane man' destroys three Buddhist deities

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has condemned the act of an insane man who destroyed three Buddhist deities in a temple in Tanah Liat, Bukit Mertajam, today.

"I visited three mosques on the occasion of Prophet Muhammad's birthday today and all the religious heads have disagreed with the act.

"I then told them I am heading to the Siamese temple and none of them protested," he told reporters at a press conference in the main hall of Wat Chatararam where the incident happened yesterday morning.

Anwar (right) felt grateful that the communities in Tanah Liat did not react to the incident as though it was a religious attack.

"I am thankful the public understands that this kind of behaviour is not Islamic," he added.

"I hope the police will monitor and step up security at the other temples around the area," he urged.

Anwar said the matter was reported in the Thai media and that he was alerted to it by a former Thai official who had visited the temple in his trips to Penang.

Also present were Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, accompanied by several DAP and PKR assemblypersons, and Seberang Perai Tengah OCPD Rusli Mohd Noor.

Temple committee chairperson Koh Kok Weng and Reverend Chan Ah Pin joined the group at the press conference.

Both Anwar and Lim praised the police for their swift response to the incident, which happened around 10am.

In a CCTV recording of the incident, a man wearing a kopiah was seen entering the temple on a motorcycle.

He then kicked down three deities, which shattered upon impact on the ground, yet he seemed very calm and remained in the area until three temple staff appeared and tried to stop him.

He then fled on his motorcycle, almost running into one of them, after circling the place and punching the air with his right fist.

‘No Muslim would approve of such behaviour’

Lim urged the public to remain calm, and to not link the issue to a religious threat.

Today is the Prophet's birthday, he reminded, saying no Muslim would approve of such behaviour.

Lim said the state government viewed the incident seriously, although it appears that the culprit may be "a mad man".

His behaviour in destroying the three deities and attempting to run down one of the temple staff who had witnessed the incident, was described as "dangerous".

"He is dangerous and may be planning on doing the same to other temples," Lim cautioned.

"We hope the police will nab the culprit soon. If he is from this village, it may not be difficult to identify him," he added.

"Such acts (attacking deities), although by an insane man in this incident, is a threat to all communities.

"If he is a fanatic, it is a cause of concern for all," Lim stressed, and then pledged financial aid to the temple to restore the deities.

Koh said that a police report has been lodged at 4pm yesterday in Bukit Mertajam.

"This temple has been around for 100 years, but nothing like this has happened before.

“When I found out what happened I rushed to the temple, and many who heard about it felt shocked and worried. This temple is next to a mosque and the place has always been peaceful," he told Malaysiakini.

Koh said the temple is well-known in Thailand, and that many prominent individuals - including Buddhist religious heads - have visited the Wat before.

When asked how much would it cost to restore the broken deities, Koh noted that the damages have yet to be ascertained.

"They are about 50 years old and are priceless," he quipped.

Dalai Lama Tells Muslims: ‘Jihad’ Is Meant ‘To Combat Our Inner Destructive Emotions’

The Dalai Lama is certainly an influential religious leader in the world but usually he stays away from controversial comments, especially when it comes to other religions.

But on Saturday the holy man decided it was high-time to speak out against violence perpetrated in the name of religion and God, in this case using the Muslim precedent of “Jihad” or holy war which, he says is being misinterpreted and misused by extremist Islam.

The Dalai Lama, who is also a nobel Peace prize winner, was referring specifically to the current atrocities being carried out by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, in the name of “Allah” and the “religion of peace.’

AFP reported that, speaking at a meeting of India’s religious leaders in Saturday, including a senior Muslim cleric, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Bombay and the head of the Jewish community in Delhi at a two-day conference, the Dalai Lama said, “Killing in the name of faith is unacceptable.”

He raised the issue of “Jihad,” the arabic word or concept for “holy war,” a concept which, like most things is subject to interpretation with the more extreme streams of Islam claiming that it means literally killing and torturing people who are not Muslim.

The Daily Mail reported that at the meeting over the weekend the Dalai Lama said that in his opinion holy war should be a struggle “to combat our inner destructive emotions, it (jihad) does not mean harming other people.”

And while that statement makes a lot of sense to many people in the west, it isn’t really the reality on the ground as an expert on Islam, Professor Rafi Israeli, told reporters that, in his opinion, “cruelty is a part of Islam,” arguing that the religion has a basic disregard for human life.

He noted excerpts from the Koran that call on Muslims globally to spread terror among their enemies without specifying who precisely those enemies are.

The Dalai Lama added that, “if we remain indifferent to what is happening around us, it is wrong. The spiritual people can show the world that it can be a happy family (despite) the different faiths.”

Fresh violence in Myanmar leaves mosque, monastery burned

An injured Buddhist man lies on a bed at the hospital in Sittwe, capital of Myanmar's western Rakhine state, on October 23, 2012
(CNN) - Fresh sectarian clashes in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine killed three people and left more than 400 houses, a monastery and a mosque burned to the ground, authorities said Tuesday.

The clashes began Sunday night and spread to four townships, said state Attorney General Hla Thein.

Rakhine is home to the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority who say they have been persecuted by the Myanmar military during its decades of authoritarian rule.

More on Myanmar: Leader holds landmark press briefing

The unrest between the majority Buddhists and the Rohingya minority began five months ago and has tested the efforts of President Thein Sein's administration to seek reconciliation with Myanmar's different ethnic groups and move the country toward more democratic governance.

Authorities have declared at state of emergency in two of the townships, with the state's prime minister instructing that medical teams be accompanied by security personnel when they visit them.

The situation in the region has been tense since May when police detained three Muslim men in relation to the rape and killing of a Buddhist woman. Two of the men were sentenced to death; the third hanged himself while in detention.


News of the crime appears to have motivated several hundred people to attack a bus in Rakhine in early June, killing 10 Muslims who were on board.

The violence then spread across the northern part of the state, resulting in the destruction of thousands of homes and the deaths of dozens, according to the government.

The national government declared a state of emergency in Rakhine, bringing in the military to help restore order.

Hundreds of Rohingyas tried to cross the border into neighboring Bangladesh, but were turned back.

Bangladesh said it already has too many Rohingya refugees, estimating that about 300,000 live in the country.

Nine churches and six Buddhist temples shut down under Islamist pressure in Banda Aceh

by Mathias Hariyadi
For the city's deputy mayor, the buildings were not being properly used. They lacked the proper building permit and were used for "unlawful" purposes. She pledged greater monitoring of minority activities. Local sources say that the crackdown is the result of threats from extremist groups. FPI now wants other cities and towns to do the same.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Authorities in Banda Aceh, capital of the Aceh Special Territory, ordered the closure of nine Christian home churches and six Buddhist prayer houses for alleged irregularities in their building permit. According to Deputy Mayor Hajjah Illiza Sa'aduddin Djamal, the buildings were illegal because they lacked the right permit. Under the law, private homes cannot be used "for religious ceremonies or functions."

"Aceh is a special territory that enforces Sharia," she said and home churches violate the law because they lack the appropriate building permit (Izin Mendirikan Bangunan in Indonesian).

The issue is more complicated in the case of Christian places of worship because the latter require the agreement of a certain number of local residents and that of the local interfaith dialogue group. Under the pressure of radical Muslim groups, permits are often denied.

Deputy Mayor Djamal also wants the authorities to monitor the activities of Buddhist and Christian communities to ensure that their services are performed in the right places. This is necessary, in her view, to "maintain interfaith harmony." At the same time, "we shall not issue any new permit for other churches or vihara (Buddhist temples)."

Local Muslim extremists welcomed the decision. Yusuf Al-Qardhawy, head of the Aceh branch of the Islamic Defence Front (FPI), called on other jurisdictions to follow Banda Aceh, enforce Islamic law and stop any non-Muslim worship activity that is not approved.

He said the situation would be monitored constantly to ensure that rules are respected. Local sources note that the municipal order shutting Buddhist and Christian places of worship follows a complaint filed by Islamists concerning an "improper" use of buildings.

The province of Aceh, the westernmost of the archipelago of Indonesia, is also the only one which is subject to Sharia. Compliance is ensured by the 'morality police,' a special force that punishes violations in dress and behaviour.

In the past, a relative calm and religious harmony between the Muslim majority and "foreigners," members of various non-Islamic faiths, prevailed under the leadership of former guerrilla leader, now Governor Irwandy Yusuf.

More recently the situation has changed however. Attacks against religious minorities have started and fundamentalists has gained more power and freedom of action.

In last April's elections, Zaini Abdullah, a former guerrilla leader who lived in exile in Sweden, won promising to fight corruption and impose Islamic law.

The strict application of Sharia was one of the conditions separatist rebels imposed on Jakarta to end their armed struggle.

As a result of a recent spike in sectarian tensions, the area saw violence and attacks against Christian communities, which led to the closure of places of worship on the order of the authorities claiming that they lacked proper building permits.

Buddhists, Hindus protest Bangladesh attack

Siliguri: Hundreds of people demonstrated against the recent burning of Buddhist monasteries and Hindu temples in Bangladesh by Muslims, who complained that a Buddhist man had insulted Islam.

General Secretary of Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association, Siliguri, Sonam Lhundup Lama urged the central government and the United Nations, Human Rights Commission, to intervene the matter. Lama added that many people sustained injuries and many houses of locals were burnt.

Buddhist monks, social activists along with school children took out to streets holding photos of injured monks, vandalised temples’ and raised slogans against the atrocities being done against the Buddhist people in Bangladesh.

Resurrecting Afghanistan's Giant Buddhas

But as the war winds down, will there be the will and means to do it?

As one gazes up at the sandstone cliff face in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province, today there is only empty space and rubble where two of the world’s largest Buddhist statues once sat.

The statues were built in Afghanistan in the 6th century – when the country was a center of Buddhist learning – and stood until they were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

“The Taliban saw the Buddha statues as symbols, as idols. They wanted to show their power in Afghanistan, especially in Bamiyan province,” said historian Ali Payam.

Merza Hosain Ahmadi, a prisoner of war at the time, took part in the destruction. He says the Taliban brought in heavy weapons, even tanks, to destroy the ancient monuments.

“They demanded all war prisoners like me to drill into the statues and put explosive materials there. Every day we made holes in the Buddha statues and put a huge number of bombs inside,” he recalls.

Ahmadi says the biggest statue was destroyed after 25 days of constant drilling and bombing.

After the fall of the Taliban in 2003, archaelogists and historians discussed the possibility of rebuilding the Buddhas. A year later, the Afghan government started the Buddha reconstruction project with the assistance of UNESCO and financial help from Japan and Germany.

But the project didn’t last long because the winter, which can run up to 7 months of the year, was too cold for the workers.

Murad Ali, 35, used to work as a guide for people visiting the Buddha ruins. He says excavators worked to rehabilitate the statues but didn’t have much success.

“They didn’t bring any big change to the destroyed statues. Everyday we can see big stones falling from the place where the biggest statue used to stand,” he says, “If nobody pays attention, the remaining parts will be destroyed too.”

But last year UNESCO decided to stop the reconstruction project and leave the statues in the hands of the Afghan government, which is reluctant to continue the project without any financial aid.

For now the site has been left as is as a way to remember the Taliban’s violence, but many would like to see the site rebuilt. A German group of archaeological conservationists, for example, are pushing for the Buddhas to be rebuilt. They have been working on the site to salvage any remaining fragments of the sculpture – some weigh up to 40 tons – and put them under a protective covering to preserve them as best they can.

Archaeology student Assadullah Husaini is convinced the Buddha reconstruction project is still possible.

“Our next goal is to rebuild the Buddha statues and challenge the Taliban with our work,” he says.

Many locals support reconstruction because the Buddhas were once a great source of income from tourists. Nasir Ahmad Bihzad, 25, is a university student who lives in the village near the Buddha statues. He says there is a good reasons to reconstruct the statues.

“Tourists who come to the site will pay money. And the benefit also goes to the local people, because tourists will buy food and other things here, stay in hotels,” he says. “We can also show our good culture to them too.”

But not everyone in Afghanistan agrees. Though many clerics and religious leaders may not have condoned the destruction of religious idols, they don’t support rebuilding them.

That includes former prisoner of war Husain Ahmad Ahmadi.

“In Islamic society, the existence of idols is haram or taboo. Especially in the society where the knowledge level is low like Afghanistan,” he says. “Some people might think that the statues are the real God and worship them.”

(This article was first broadcast on Asia Calling, a regional current affairs radio program produced by Indonesia’s independent radio news agency KBR68H and broadcast in local languages in 10 countries across Asia. You can find more stories from Asia Calling at www.asiacalling.org.)

Bangladhesh anti-Buddhist violence 'planned'

Historic Buddhist temples in Bangladesh burn over a photo
on Facebook.  Guess who got their feelings hurt again...?

Bangladesh, 25 thousand Muslims set fire to 22 Buddhist temples

The violence erupted in the south-east of the country, after the release of an "anti-islam" photo on Facebook. Hundreds of homes destroyed. A 250 year old temple destroyed. It is one of the rarest and most violent attacks against the Buddhist community in the country.

Dhaka (AsiaNews / Agencies) - About 25 thousand Muslims set on fire and destroyed 22 Buddhist temples and hundreds of homes in south-eastern Bangladesh, one of the rarest and most violent attacks against the Buddhist community in the country. The violence took place on the night of September 29th and was sparked a photo posted on Facebook, deemed "offensive" against Islam. According to some protesters, a Buddhist in the area posted the image on the social network. For the moment, the authorities have arrested a young man, Uttam Kumar Barua, but it is unclear whether he is really responsible for the having posted the photo. During the disorder, two Hindu temples were also demolished.

The violence has affected dozens of villages of the upazila (sub-districts) of Ramu, Ukhia, Patia and Teknaf (Chittagong Division). The most serious losses were reported in Ramu, where 15 Buddhist temples were razed to the ground and more than 100 houses burnt. It all started around 10 pm (local time), when hundreds of people invaded the area of ​​Choumuhani, staging a protest. The crowd soon swelled, reaching thousands of people and breaking the security cordon of police. Around midnight, people started to spread gunpowder and gasoline, and set fire to temples and homes. Among the places of worship destroyed, there was also the 250 year old temple of Shima Bihar,.

So far police have arrested 26 people for public disorder. According to local authorities, Muslim Rohingya, the Muslim minority originally from Myanmar's Rakhine State, fomented the protests. For months, this community has been a victim of ethnic persecution: the country, in fact, does not recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group, but considers them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority country (90%). With a population of about 161milioni of people, it is one of the poorest nations in the world, but the third largest Islamic state in the world. Hindus are about 9% of the population, Buddhists and Christians, a minority of the small percentage of just 1%. However, the Buddhist community has never experienced violence on this scale.

Malaysia’s Kelantan demands Islamic designs in Buddhist building

A controversy is brewing over the proposal for the construction of a Buddhist building here after the PAS-led state government ruled that new buildings should include Islamic designs to reflect the state capital’s status as an Islamic city.

State Local Government, Culture, Arts and Tourism committee chairman Takiyuddin Hassan said developers must incorporate some Islamic elements in their plans or the proposals would be rejected.

“We will ensure development will be based on Islamic principles and features,” he told a press conference here.

He claimed the ruling was well-accepted by the majority of developers, including non-Muslim developers.

“I do not see it as an issue or something that could cause religious tension, as it only involves architecture and design,” he said.

“They have accepted the new ruling well.”

Takiyuddin was commenting on an appeal by the Kelantan Buddhist Association for the state government to approve its building, to be constructed with Chinese features at Jl. Sultan Zainal Abidin here.

It is understood that the association had been told that its building design should have dome-shaped motifs, which have created a controversy in the Chinese media.

In an immediate reaction, Kota Baru MCA division chief Tan Ken Ten slammed the directive, which he said was an infringement of the rights of non-Muslims in the state.

“The ruling is an extreme attempt to impose one’s beliefs into other people’s culture or religious beliefs,” Tan said.

“The PAS government must be mindful that Malaysia is a multi-cultural and multi-religious society that respects the differences of each community. It should appreciate this diversity which makes this country unique,” Tan added.

State MCA Youth chief Gan Han Chuan said the Kelantan government was showing disrespect towards the non-Muslims with its new policy.

“With the new directive, PAS is trying to create discord by destroying the harmonious relations between the communities that had been built by the Barisan Nasional over the years,” he added.

“One can only wonder what type of archaic policies PAS will introduce if Pakatan Rakyat manages to take over the Federal Government,” Gan said.