He can’t renounce “radicalism,” because he believes it to be simply Islam. Despite many claims to the contrary, “moderate” Muslim spokesmen in the West have never shown the beliefs of “radicals” such as Abu Bakar Bashir to be un-Islamic.
“Cleric linked to Bali bombings ‘won’t renounce radicalism,'” Associated Press, January 19, 2019 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
JAKARTA: An Islamic cleric who was the ideological leader of the Bali bombers is being released early from a 15-year prison sentence after Indonesia’s president relented on a condition that he renounce radical beliefs, lawyers confirmed on Saturday.
Abu Bakar Bashir had previously been ineligible for parole because of his refusal to recognise the secular government’s authority. He insists he is answerable only to God and that Indonesia should be governed by Islamic law.
His planned release comes during campaigning for a presidential election due in April in which some opponents of President Joko Widodo have tried to discredit him as insufficiently Islamic.
Lawyer Yusril Ihza Mahendra, chairman of an Islamic political party and adviser to Widodo’s re-election campaign, said at a news conference on Saturday that he had brought the issue of Bashir’s imprisonment to the president, who was able to “respect” Bashir’s beliefs and ease the conditions of his release.
“The president put aside the ministerial regulations,” he said. “In terms of law, the ministerial regulation was a policy so that the president as the highest policy maker could override the ministerial regulation.”
Widodo announced on Friday that Bashir, who is 80 and in frail health, would be released on humanitarian grounds. The date of his release hasn’t been announced, but it is expected to happen within days.
The firebrand cleric was arrested almost immediately after the 2002 Bali bombings. Most of the 202 people killed in the bombings were foreigners, including dozens of Australians, leaving a deep scar on that country.
But prosecutors were unable to prove a string of terrorism-related allegations, and Bashir was instead sentenced to 18 months in prison for immigration violations.
In 2011, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting a military-style training camp for Islamist militants. An Indonesian of Yemeni descent, he was also a founder of an Islamic boarding school in the central Javanese city of Solo that terrorism experts regarded as a factory for violent extremists….
gravenimage says
Indonesia: Muslim cleric linked to Bali jihad massacre to be released despite not renouncing “radicalism”
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Of course he has not renounced Jihad–this is orthodox Islam. Indonesia releasing him is appalling but not surprising.
J D S says
How CAN a believer who follows their book of HATE renounce anything their so called prophet Muhammad (if he ever actually existed?) said ? Impossible unless they renounce Islam as a FAKE man made religion and that puts a death threat on their head….Old geezer clerics are the very ones who are killing their young believers by putting this carp in their heads and getting them killed and in turn the young believers are killing innocents thereby putting a lot of blood on the old GEEZERS hands.
Brian hoff says
He is than very old man if he die in jail it would look bad on the secular governmeny. The two largest political partiies are Islamist partys.
Adam says
I live in Indonesia and we have sure changed a lot. The majority of media used to condemn and demonize this guy back during his first arrest, even criticizing the government for bowing down to radical pressure when he only got 18 months. Now we’ve reached the point where the so called ‘moderate’ who’s portrayed as the secular-liberal faction ‘champion’ granting early release to court muslim voters for his reelection in 2019.
tim gallagher says
In Australia, Channel 10 TV news have been covering this Bashir situation for the past three days or so. They have a reporter, Hugh Riminton, over in Indonesia. There’s been a couple of interesting (sickening, but interesting) insights into the MUslim mindset in the reports. A couple of nights back they had some revolting old Muslim imam type ( a huge fan of and co-worker with Bashir) who is an Australian man, born in Sydney, who converted to islam 40 years ago. I can’t recall his name, but it was a mixture of Muslim type names and his Anglo type surname, from before he became a Muslim. He said something about how their task was to “enforce the Koran”. I thought, oh, right, so murdering the 200 plus people in Bali, is, I guess, enforcing the wonderful calls in the Koran to “kill non-believers wherever you find them.” Islam is so evil. What we think is evil is good in Islam. I also thought, well, of course, in islam, people who go to nightclubs, like the people murdered in Bali, ,would deserve death even more. Last night, they interviewed Bashir’s lawyer. They asked him if Bashir would renounce his radical beliefs. The lawyer said Bashir was a man of principle, so, of course, he wouldn’t change his beliefs. The lawyer was saying it in a way that meant Bashir is a good man, a man of principle. Again, Islam is so evil. Yeah, Bashir’s and so many other Muslims’ principles are that it’s virtuous to murder non-Muslims. The whole thing is sickening. Islam’s idea of morality is upside down. As many people say here at Jihad Watch, God, I loathe Islam.
Dapto says
No more $300mil Aid from Australia then
gravenimage says
I hope not.
Marigold says
Thankyou Robert for this report. As I have said elsewhere on this website the ABC in Australia reported that Bashir’s lawyer had said that he had done nothing wrong because everything he had said was in the Koran.
One or two Australian Bali bombing victims were interviewed who were naturally very upset at him being released so early.
The Indonesian economy suffered greatly as a result of the Bali bombing and the Indonesians wouldn’t want anything like that happening again.They also receive millions in aid from Australia so they wouldn’t want that jeopardised either.
However, the reality is that there seems to be no shortage of militant Islamists in Indonesia which President Widodo has to pacify especially if he wants to get re elected in a few months time.
The ABC also reported that they have also released the former governer of Jakarta who is a Christian and was imprisoned for blasphemy.Mind you they did not enlarge on what he is supposed to have said about Islam or Mohammed to get him slapped into prison.You can bet it wasn’t much, if anything, because militant Islamists would get him on the flimsiest of excuses as they certainly do not want a Christian governer.The ABC in Australia condescended to report this issue today quite fairly as a matter of fact so I have written to thank them telling them that these issues are very important to Christians in Australia hoping that they will take notice.