Indonesia's two largest Muslim organizations have criticized the Religious Affairs Ministry for barring a liberal Egyptian Islamic thinker from addressing an international youth conference earlier this week.
"We are concerned with the case. It should not have happened," Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin was quoted Thursday by local newspaper The Jakarta Post as saying.
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd of Egypt decided to cancel his appearance at an Islamic seminar slated for Tuesday in Malang, East Java, following pressure from the ministry.
The ministry said it had received demands from certain Muslim organizations for the government to ban Abu Zayd from attending.
Abu Zayd was already in Surabaya, East Java, when he was told through a text message by the ministry to stay away from the forum.
Abu Zayd, who lives in exile in the Netherlands, has widely been accused in Egypt and several other Muslim nations of blasphemy by saying the Koran was a "cultural product."
Similar concerns were expressed by Masdar Farid Mas'udi, leaderof the country's largest Muslim group Nahdlatul Ulama.
"I am not interested in judging whether Abu Zayd's Islamic thought is right or heretic ... but I think it's not wise to promote an excessive suspicion of new things considered to be violating the mainstream view," he said.
Source: Xinhua
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