Indonesia condemns France attacks, but warns against Macron's remarks
Indonesian president Joko Widodo on Saturday condemned what he called "terrorist" attacks in France, but also warned that remarks by President Emmanuel Macron had "insulted Islam" and "hurt the unity of Muslims everywhere."Conservative Islamic organizations in Indonesia, the world's most significant Muslim-majority country, have needed protests and boycotts against France, sharing a graphic of Macron as a red-eyed devilish snail.
"Freedom of speech that injures the noble purity and sacred values and symbol of religion is indeed wrong, it must not be justified and it needs to avoid," the Indonesian leader, who's known by his popular name Jokowi, said in a televised address. He added, however, that "linking religion to acts of terrorism is an enormous mistake. Terrorists are terrorists." A knife-wielding Tunisian man shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) beheaded a female and killed two other persons in a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday.
The attack came significantly less than two weeks after a middle-school teacher in a Paris suburb was beheaded by an 18-year-old attacker who was simply apparently incensed by the teacher showing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in class. Macron has vowed to stand firm against attacks on French values and freedom of belief, however, many of his comments both prior to and following the recent attacks - including calling Islam "a religion in crisis around the world" - have proved controversial.
Jokowi didn't specify which of Macron's comments he was discussing in his address on Saturday. An Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Saturday the ministry had summoned the French ambassador on Tuesday over remarks by Macron they said "insulted Islam" and the actual fact he allowed publication of the cartoons. Tens of thousands of Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, and the Palestinian territories protested against France on Friday.
