Muslim students protest Obama visit to Indonesia
Scores of Islamic students staged protests outside Jakarta's parliament and in at least three other major Indonesian cities on Friday against President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to the predominantly Muslim country, the Associated Press reports.
The students carried banners branding Obama as an enemy of Islam and an imperialist in downtown Jakarta as well as in the provincial capitals Padang, Yogyakarta and Surabaya, the AP reports.
They also threw shoes at large pictures of Obama's head. An Iraqi journalist was sentenced to a year in prison for throwing his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in 2008.
Protest organizer Ahmad Irhamul Fikri, spokesman for the Coordinating Board for Campus Proselytizing Institute, said bigger rallies will be staged next Friday in more Indonesian cities ahead of Obama's March 20-22 visit.
Such demonstrations of hostility toward Obama are rare in Indonesia, where he enjoys widespread popularity because he spend part of his childhood in Jakarta while his mother was married to his Indonesian stepfather.
Local government officials allowed business people to erect a statue of a 10-year-old Obama in a Jakarta park in December. But it was shifted last month to a nearby elementary school that he attended after more than 50,000 people supported a Facebook campaign against it and court action was threatened.
Obama is expected to sign the statue's pedestal while in Jakarta.
Comments
Can't say that I blame them. He's a hawk, in favor of needless war and has killed thousands of innocent Muslims. (I'm not Muslim, by the way, was raised as an Anglican). He's no better than George Bush and seems to be more of a war-lover than Bush, if that's possible.
Posted by: Kristen O. | March 6, 2010 1:16 PM
So just walk out of the mideast, let the Taliban take over and go bowling? If the Muslim extremists werent trying to control the mideast and come here and disrupt things then maybe there wouldnt be a war. According to the leader of Iran, 911 was a hoax where we bombed our own people. or at least encouraged others to do so. Shame on us Americans, causing all that trouble in New York. I suppose we will have to go along with them wiping Israel of the map or we will be in big trouble. God will see that Israel is His homeland in the end, and it wont be with some misguided Muslims. It will be with His Son Jesus.
Posted by: Clay | March 6, 2010 8:20 PM
war-lover, Bush? When are you people going to grow up?
Posted by: J. Alejandro | March 13, 2010 10:38 AM