The Indonesian Ulema (Cleric) Council (MUI) urged the Indonesian government to approach the government in Egypt to ask its court to cancel the mass death penalty ruling.
"The government must help defend the rights of those who are innocent,"
Saleh Daulay, the chairman of the MUI's Fatwa (religious edict)
Commission said recently.
Members of the Ikhwanul Muslimin (Islamic Brotherhood) are Egyptian citizens whose constitutional rights are recognized, he said.
A
similar appeal was also made by the International Conference of Islamic
Scholars (ICIS), which urged the Egyptian government to revoke the
death penalty.
"We will write to the Egyptian government to cancel the mass death
penalty," ICIS Secretary General KH Hasyim Muzadi stated recently.
He categorically said the mass death penalty was unacceptable because
it was against Islamic teachings as well as the international laws.
"The
degree of the offense that one had committed must be different from
that of others, and the sentence must be passed based on the degree of
the offense that each defendant had committed," he affirmed.
He emphasized that Islam bans punishment, which is meted out based on hatred.
On April 28, the El-Minya district court in Egypt sentenced to death
the leader of the Ikhwanul Muslimin, Muhammad Badie, along with 682
other members of the organization who were considered to be the
supporters of the ousted Egyptian president Muhamad Morsi.
In March, the same sentence was also handed down to 529 people, but
later the sentence for 492 of them was reduced to life imprisonment.
A deep concern was also expressed by the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI), which had appealed to the Egyptian government to cancel the death penalty.
A deep concern was also expressed by the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI), which had appealed to the Egyptian government to cancel the death penalty.
"I
appeal to the Egyptian government to cancel the mass death penalty
because it is against justice and human rights," chairman of ICMI's
presidium, Professor Nanat Fatah, stated in Jakarta recently.
A demand to revoke the death penalty ruling was also made by
Indonesia's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (PBNU). "The
ruling must be reconsidered because it is a regression of democracy and
violates human rights. We all are ashamed of the court ruling," PBNU
Chairman Said Aqil Siroj said recently.
PBNU planned to write letters to the Egyptian government, the
University of Al Azhar, and the United Nations about the mass death
sentence.
"We urge Al Azhar to give tausyiah (advise) to its government," Said Aqil said.
Beheading hundreds of people for political reason is a barbaric act, he
stated. He will regret it if it happened in Egypt, which is an old
country, with a rich and old civilization.
"The best solution is through discussion," Said Agil added.
Deputy Chairman of the Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly
Hajriyanto Y Thohari on April 30 urged the Indonesian government to
strongly denounce the mass death penalty ruling.
Such a mass and collective death penalty is not common in any country,
particularly when it is based on political rivalry, according to him.
Indonesia
should join other international powers in condemning the mass death
sentence and in pressuring the Egyptian government to revoke the ruling
and to respect human rights, he added.
Hajriyanto also expressed his concern over the ambivalent attitude
demonstrated by Egyptian intellectuals, Muslim clerics and liberals
towards the unjust ruling.
Hajriyanto particularly expressed his surprise about the attitude of
the Egyptian liberals, who supported the mass death penalty.
"It is justified if we doubt the commitment of Egypt's intellectuals
and liberals to democracy, human rights and freedom," he said.
He
urged the Indonesian government to take the initiative of calling for
an international meeting to discuss the mass capital punishment in
Egypt.
"We should ask the UN to hold an emergency meeting. The mass death
penalty ruling is not an internal affair of Egypt, but it is a universal
issue on humanity," Hajriyanto stated.
An Egyptian court's mass death penalty ruling is a clear sign of a
major regression of democracy in the country, asserted an Indonesian
political observer.
"Indeed,
during the transitional period towards democracy, it can revert to a
new authoritarian regime, which is more repressive than the previous
one," Dr Yon Machmudi of the University of Indonesia (UI) recently
stated.
When
several countries have tried to end capital punishment, the Egyptian
government, on the contrary, demonstrated its dictatorship by sentencing
hundreds of its political opponents to death, he pointed out.
The Indonesian government and other countries must oppose the mass
death penalty because it can become a humanitarian disaster if it is
implemented, noted Machmudi, who is also the secretary of the UI's
Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies.
He categorically stated that Egypt will become the world's biggest criminal if it goes ahead with the court's ruling.
"Sentencing 683 civilians to death at the same time is a crime that the
ruler will commit against humanity," he affirmed.
He likened the Egyptian court's ruling to legalizing genocide by the ruler against its political opponents.
"I think Indonesia, as a democratic country that upholds human rights,
must voice its opposition against the barbaric politics in Egypt," he
remarked.
Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa recently expressed
his concern about the mass death penalty ruling in Egypt.
"With no intentions of interfering with the domestic issues in Egypt,
we are concerned about the death sentence given to 683 members of the
Ikhwanul Muslimin recently and the previous death sentence given to 529
of its members in March 2014," Marty noted in a statement released by
the Foreign Affairs Ministry on April 29.
"We pray that the democratization process in Egypt will focus on the inclusive reconciliation spirit and wish that such a process will be run in a peaceful manner," Marty said.
"We pray that the democratization process in Egypt will focus on the inclusive reconciliation spirit and wish that such a process will be run in a peaceful manner," Marty said.
Indonesian lawmaker Almuzzamil Yusuf has called on President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono to condemn Egypt's mass death penalty ruling and to
unite other Muslim-majority countries in demanding a revocation of the
death sentence.
"As
the world's largest Muslim country, we, the Indonesian government and
people, must condemn the barbaric and inhuman act of sentencing a large
number of its citizens without a proper court trial," Muzzamil, the
deputy chairman of the Parliament's Commission III, noted recently.
The Egyptian court did not comply with the international laws by
denying the suspects an opportunity to defend themselves nor were they
provided with lawyers to represent them during the trials, he
reiterated.
"The basic rights were denied to citizens by the government of Egypt through the Egyptian court," Muzzamil emphasized.
The mass death penalty ruling demonstrated a serious regression of
democracy in the Middle Eastern country, he stressed. ***1***
(f001/INE/a014)
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(f001/INE/a014)
EDITED BY INE
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