From the Jakarta Post, with thanks to Nancy Block and L:
Despite a dissenting opinion on Islamic rituals, certain Muslim clerics have questioned the police’s decision to detain an Islamic school leader in Malang, East Java, for leading daily prayers in both Arabic and Indonesian, a practice libeled as despoiling organized religion.
Ahmad Syafii Maarif, who chairs Muhammadiyah — the country’s second largest Muslim organization, said that while Muhammad Yusman Roy might have done something wrong, he did not commit a crime.
“He should have just been told about the mistake he was making, but not arrested,” Syafii told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
Ali Maschan Moesa, the East Java branch chairman of the country’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), said that police had gone too far in detaining Yusman. Yusman was arrested for violating Article 156 (a) of the Criminal Code on despoiling an organized religion, a crime that carries a maximum punishment of five years in jail…